Their Future, Our Future

Putting children first when it comes to targeting poverty is the single most effective way to ensure the welfare of future generations.

Children are increasingly a focus for national and international development attention. Throughout the world, political rhetoric emphasis the need to put children – and therefore, society’s future – first. Politicians regularly pose with healthy babies or young students at their desks, promoting the alleged results of their time in office and their development achievements. But the facts and figures paint another picture.

There have been some notable achievements, such as the decline in infant mortality rates in most parts of the world. However, there are still many areas of serious concern.

Six hundred million children live in households with an income of less than US$1 a day, 120 million children work full-time, and a further 130 million work part-time. More that one fifth of children of primary school age are mot in school – that is 130 million children. Eleven million children die from preventable diseases every year. In the UK – one of the world’s countries – 3 million children are living in relative poverty.

Furthermore, in some parts of the world – particularly Sub-Saharan Africa and the former Soviet Union – the situation has worsened over the last 20 years. Before the HIV / AIDS epidemic, no more that 2 percent of children in the South were orphans. In Zambia the figure is now 12.9 percent , and in Rwanda it is 12.8 percent.

Some diseases of poverty, such as diphtheria and tuberculosis, have reappeared in the former Soviet Union. In Kyrgyzstan, for example, the incident of tuberculosis – a disease strongly related to poverty – has more than doubled in the period since 1991, to affect more than 120 per 100,000 of the population.

Since 1989, the number of children in institutional care has risen by 45 percent in Romania and Russia, and as much as 75 percent in Latvia. This may reflect families inability to cope with the burden of poverty due to economic decline and a reduction in social safety nets.

Whatever the cause, more children in these countries are now being denied their rights – to education and health services, development, shelter, protection, good nutrition and clean water.

This shocking picture suggests that current anti-poverty strategies are failing to alleviate the poverty of children. Rightly, poverty strategies are aimed at all people living in poverty, whether they are young or old, male or female. Families and communities together cope with the effects of poverty. But would increased effort aimed at children and young adults bring about more sustainable and effective poverty reduction?

There are sound developmental arguments for focusing on children in poverty:

1. Childhood is a one-off windows of opportunity and development. Certain losses incurred during childhood cannot be recouped later.

Unlike adults, children cannot necessarily overcome the effects of poverty, and short periods of poverty can affect the rest of their lives. For example, malnutrition in early childhood can impair children’s physical development so that they grow up small and weak, and it can hinder brain development and their capacity to learn.

Girls who are undernourished in childhood are more likely to give birth to poorly nourished babies and to face complications and a higher risk of mortality (maternal and child) during childbirth. Children who miss out on formal education may have to learn essential skills and knowledge for the future.

1. Children are one of the most powerless groups in all societies, and the physical and emotional costs of poverty are often passed on to them. Where adults are out all day trying to earn money, older children may take on sole responsibility for their younger siblings, cooking what food there is, and obtaining water or fuel.

They may also be subject to violence from adults or older siblings, worn down by the frustrations of trying to find work, having too little money, being constantly hungry, or facing discrimination and verbal abuse from the better off.

1. In many parts of the world poverty is increasingly concentrated among families with children. The world’s population reached 6 billion in 1999 – an increase of 1 billion in 12 years. Nearly half the world’s population is under 25, and 40 percent is under 15.

In many countries, particularly in Africa, children under 15 make up nearly 50 percent of the population (50 percent of Uganda , and 48 percent in Congo, Niger, Somalia and Yemen). The concentration of poverty among families with children suggests that focusing attention on them would be an effective way to reduce poverty overall.

1. today’s poor children are all too often tomorrow’s poor parents. While some people do manage to escape poverty, for most, being born poor means staying poor, and the risk that their children will also be poor.

This is disastrous both for individuals  and for society as a whole, as it means the health, well being and productivity of future generations is compromised.

1. Children’s rights are universal and invisible. Despite the compelling arguments for taking a broader approach to child poverty, the strategies to address ti have tended to focus primarily on health and education services.

Alternatively, they have focused on particular groups of children, such as orphans and street children, and not on the large majority of children living in less striking but very difficult circumstances.

Thinking about child poverty in terms of individual sectors or specific groups obscures the connections between the different aspects of child poverty, and the relationships between child and adult poverty. This is problematic as it is the reality of deprivation in so many parts of children’s lives, and the way in which each aspect of poverty reinforces another aspect, that makes child poverty such a time-bomb. That is why tackling its many dimensions is such a priority. Thinking in terms of sectors can also shift attention away from the processes underpinning child poverty, thus undermining the effectiveness of policies.

The most effective action is based on an understanding of what is specific about child poverty towards children, and – as child poverty is primarily the result of household, community or national poverty – it is best addressed within these wider contexts.

A deeper and clearer understanding of child poverty is needed – not to make s special case for children, but to gain a better understanding of the solutions. Alleviating child poverty, fulfilling children’s rights and breaking the cycle of poverty would not only benefit future generations – it would benefit society as a whole.

Caroline  Harper
Head of research and development
Save the Children