Poverty

The COVID-19 pandemic will have long term economic consequences for children, communities and countries around the world. Children who were already poor and vulnerable will be the most affected , as they suffer the impacts of lost education, poorer nutrition, increased child labour and child marriage, and greater mental ill health. More than 142…, 1. Safeguard critical social spending to ensure that social systems and interventions are protected from spending cuts and are expanded where inadequate, Investments in children, such as reducing child malnutrition, expanding pre-school and primary education, particularly for girls, and in reducing child poverty through social protection, are vital to protect human capital and consistently provide the highest social and economic returns. Investments in early childhood development are critical,…, 2. Ensure the best, most equitable, effective and efficient use of financial resources across social sectors for human capital development, An inclusive recovery requires extra efforts to ensure public services are reaching poor and excluded children, to enhance short-term recovery and contribute to reducing future inequality. To increase efficiency, governments should eliminate wasteful or duplicative expenditure, adopt more efficient public finance practices to improve budget…, 3. Direct adequate finance towards an inclusive recovery that protects children, especially the poorest and most marginalized, Priority actions include providing additional finance for COVID-19 vaccines and vaccine delivery; taking meaningful action on the part of all creditors to restructure unsustainable debt and avoid the looming debt crisis ; agreeing to a new allocation of IMF Special Drawing Rights (SDRs); scaling up and faster disbursement of both bilateral and…