G-20 Investment in Children

On 2 April 2009, Prime Minister Gordon Brown and world leaders from the G-20 will meet to address the global financial crisis. Will the leaders address the impact on world's most vunerable children? Will their fiscal stimulus packages help keep children healthy and in school?

Help us make the case for investment in child-focused social protection.

UNICEF works in 191 countries across the world and is collecting data on the impact of the current financial crisis on children. In January, UNICEF organised a conference in Singapore on the impact of the economic crisis on children. You can find out more information here. http://www.unicef.org/malaysia/media_9876.html

To build on this, UNICEF UK has commissioned ODI, Britain's leading independent think tank on international development and humanitarian issues, to develop a discussion paper on the impact of economic crises on children, the pathways by which they are affected and examples of how investment in children can help. The paper will look at what can be learnt from previous crises and whether social protection spending can act as a counter-cyclical measure as well as preventing inter-generational transfers of poverty and securing children's rights. This discussion paper was presented and available for the first time at the seminar.