UNICEF's 2025 Report on Child Poverty
UNICEF's flagship report, The State of the World’s Children 2025: Ending Child Poverty – Our Shared Imperative, highlights significant issues regarding child poverty globally. Released on World Children’s Day, November 20, 2025, the report outlines critical challenges and solutions.
Key Statistics and Findings
- More than one in five children in low and middle-income countries, approximately 400 million globally, are deprived of at least two critical factors for their health, development, and wellbeing.
- India is home to about 460 million children under 18 years of age.
- India has made significant progress in poverty reduction, attributed to its flagship programmes supporting child investment.
India's Progress
- India is on track to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 1.2 before the 2030 deadline, aiming to reduce poverty by half in all dimensions.
- Niti Aayog’s National Multidimensional Poverty Index reports that India helped 248 million citizens, including children, escape multidimensional poverty from 2013-14 to 2022-23, with the poverty index dropping from 29.2% to 11.3%.
Recommendations
- The report emphasizes making ending child poverty a national priority by:
- Embedding child rights in policies and budgets.
- Expanding inclusive social protection programs to safeguard vulnerable families.
- Ensuring equitable access to education, healthcare, nutrition, sanitation, and housing.
- Promoting decent work and economic security for caregivers.
Cynthia McCaffrey, UNICEF’s representative to India, stresses that there is no greater return on investment than investing in children, emphasizing the tools and knowledge available to end child poverty.
