儿童贫困问题到底有多难解决？UNICEF有答！

儿童贫困问题到底有多难解决？UNICEF有答！ JN: UNICEF is warning that the plight of the world's disadvantaged children will worsen in the next decade or so if action is not taken. Over 165 million children will be living on less than two US dollars a day, and almost 70 million children under the age of 5 will have died of largely preventable causes. It also predicts that 750 million women will have been married as children,. It argues that investing in the most disadvantaged is not only the right thing to do, but an economically sound and strategic decision. ZCG: What are the causes of this situation? Do they vary much from country to country, or they largely the same? SB: So what, what the report highlights is that what we’re trying to do is advocate for a more nuanced approach to defining poverty for children. So it’s obviously economic, but the social ramifications are critically important. So, it’s not just looking at how much money the household has, but whether the child has access to good health, whether they are getting access to a decent primary school, and the quality of education and learning is important. Do they have access to safe water, what’s their environment like, and are they able to grow up healthy, and that obviously differs from country to country. But in many ways we know that even the poorest countries with the right political commitments can make a difference, if they’re investing in the types of social programs that can benefit, that can improve the access to basic services and improve the quality of life that a child is growing up in. BK: Well, we have these Sustainable Development Goals which were actually agreed upon late last year, but the report also said that these goals are likely to fail if action is not taken. So what else specifically can national governments and international organizations do? In particular, how valuable might be education and cash transfers be? SB: We know that education can be a way to break intergenerational poverty. If you educate a mother, if you make sure a girl doesn’t drop out of school and doesn’t fall into early marriage, the likelihood is that her children will be better educated, more healthier, and survive. So we’ve got to look at those intergenerational investments to stop the vicious cycle of poverty. Education is critical. You also mentioned, and the report highlights cash transfers. We have seen great evidence that if we build safety nets for children and their families, if we invest in social transfers, and those social transfers can be household level, where you could give a family an extra income that they could use then for investing in their children, or it can be an investment in the poorest services to make sure they access quality free primary education and quality free healthcare that that is a sort of social transfer that helps improve the development and growth of that child, which then obviously has a huge individual investment, I mean the child grows up healthy, educated, but it also contributes to the development of society, and leads to an economic return on that small investment. We’ve got statistics the report highlights in health, education where you just invest and the economic return later is enormous. A dollar invested for example in vaccines, can lead to a huge investment of 16 dollars in economic gains later, because you’re children are healthy, they’re going to grow up productive.