UNICEF [to 21 November 2015]
http://www.unicef.org/media/media_78364.html

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For every child, a fair chance: The promise of equity
UNICEF
November 2015 :: 48 pages :: ISBN: 978-92-806-4817-1
PDF: http://www.unicef.org/media/files/Equity_Report.pdf

Introduction: The equity agenda
Giving a fair chance in life to every child, everywhere – especially the most disadvantaged – offers the greatest hope of breaking intergenerational cycles of inequity and poverty in every society. That is the central proposition underlying UNICEF’s ‘equity agenda’.

The principle of equity guides UNICEF’s work with a sharp focus on the world’s most vulnerable children: those from the poorest households, girls, children with disabilities, migrant and refugee children, those living in remote areas, and children from ethnic or religious groups facing discrimination. The following pages build on evidence and experience from this work to make two main arguments for closing persistent gaps in equity.

First, the cycle of inequity is neither inevitable nor insurmountable. UNICEF works to break that cycle by tackling inequities in opportunity for children who have been marginalized. That means supporting interventions to give these children a good start in life and continuing to intervene at key points during their early childhood and adolescence. Making such investments not only changes the future of the most disadvantaged children but also charts a new course for their children.

Second, the cost of inaction is too high. Failing to invest sustainably in essential services and protection for every child does not just deny today’s children their rights but will have detrimental effects for generations to come. Failing to seize critical windows of opportunity in the lives of the most vulnerable children now will incur higher costs later. These costs will be felt in terms of lost lives, wasted potential and reduced productivity. In the end, inaction will contribute to social and economic inequities affecting entire societies and will slow or reverse global development progress.

This report outlines many of the milestones achieved for the world’s poor and marginalized children to date, as well as many of the remaining gaps. It examines seven sectors that are critical to progress for children: health; HIV and AIDS; water, sanitation and hygiene; nutrition; education; child protection; and social inclusion. In each sector, there are stark contrasts between global advances on one hand and the urgent, unmet needs of the world’s most vulnerable children on the other.

Beyond facts and figures, the report also features selected stories about children and families who have not shared equally in those advances – and about what UNICEF and its partners are doing to right the balance. The stories highlight equity-focused approaches to both humanitarian crises and longer-term development, because action on both fronts will be needed to achieve the newly adopted Sustainable Development Goals.

As policymakers chart pathways for the post-2015 era, the time has come to invest sustainably in equity for the most disadvantaged. For every child, a fair chance sets out UNICEF’s vision for equity and demonstrates the positive, concrete impact of equity-based programmes. Above all, the report underscores why equity is so important: because all children have the right to survive, thrive and reach their full potential, whoever they are and wherever they live.

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Press release
Universal Children’s Day: Why fair matters
NEW YORK, 20 November 2015 – The world remains a deeply unfair place for the poorest and most disadvantaged children despite major advances since the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989, according to a UNICEF report released today.

“In just over a generation, the world has cut child death rates by half, put over 90 per cent of children in primary school, and increased by 2.6 billion the number of people with access to safe water,” said UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake.

“Yet children make up almost half of the world’s poor, nearly 250 million children live in conflict-torn countries, and over 200,000 have risked their lives this year seeking refuge in Europe.”
The report, For every child, a fair chance: The promise of equity, presents a statistical picture of how the world’s most marginalized children have fared against basic human development indicators.

It points out that:
:: Children from the poorest households are nearly twice as likely as those from the richest households to die before age five, and five times more likely to be out of school.
:: Girls from the poorest families are four times more likely as those from the richest families to be married before 18.
:: More than 2.4 billion people still do not have adequate toilets – 40 per cent of them in South Asia; and more than 660 million still lack access to safe drinking water – nearly half of them in sub-Saharan Africa.
:: Roughly half of the 159 million children suffering from stunting live in South Asia and one-third in Africa.

“Such vast inequities fuel a vicious intergenerational cycle of poverty and disadvantage,” Lake said. “But it doesn’t have to be this way. We know how to slow, stop, and reverse it into a virtuous cycle of intergenerational progress. It is up to us to decide to do so through more commitment and resources. We must make this moral, pragmatic, strategic…and fair…choice.”

For every child, a fair chance makes the case for closing persistent gaps in equity, arguing that investing in children, particularly the most vulnerable, is right in principle and right in practice – and that such investment brings multiple benefits not only to children but also to their families, communities and economies…