The main themes of the Forum
The first edition of the " Hope by UNICEF " Forum is dedicated to the prevention and fight against child poverty , in France and around the world, and to the development of recommendations and solutions for building a fairer world for future generations.
This thematic choice for the first edition of the Forum is a strong call in favour of the universal right of every child everywhere in the world to benefit from equitable access to education, health, protection, and an environment conducive to their development.
During this day, several conferences and workshops will follow one another around the following themes:
The perception of child poverty in France
In October 2023, UNICEF France launched the 6th edition of the National Consultation for 6-18 year-olds. Until March 15, 2024, this study, conducted throughout the country, allowed children and young people to express themselves on issues of poverty and social exclusion.
For this first edition of the Forum, we wanted to draw on the results of this national consultation carried out with more than 20,000 children and young people.
By highlighting children's perception of their daily lives, their relationships within the family, the city or their neighborhood, the school, we act at both local and national levels. The data collected by UNICEF France helps to fuel the thinking of elected officials and decision-makers for a better orientation of public policies in favor of children and adolescents.
The report on the results of the 6th edition of the National Consultation will be published on November 19, on the occasion of the Forum.
Multidimensional poverty,
How to measure it and take it into account better?
Financial poverty does not allow us to describe the experience of poverty, particularly for children. For several years, multidimensional measures of poverty in living conditions have been put in place to better understand how economic well-being affects individuals. These concepts are still rarely applied to childhood. Thus, the reality of child poverty remains poorly known and poorly understood, at the risk of harming the effectiveness of public policies to combat child poverty, as well as the quality of their monitoring.
There are several ways to think about and measure child poverty. Many studies calculate the proportion of children living in financially poor households, generally identified as those with incomes below 50% or 60% of the median income. This indicator therefore helps to capture the financial constraints faced by households. However, household income does not always reflect the living conditions and well-being of the people in the household, particularly children.
The concept of deprivation or poverty "in living conditions" aims to better reflect the lived experience of poverty among children. For example, the indicator of poverty in living conditions of children, developed by UNICEF, considers that children are experiencing a situation of poverty in living conditions when the household in which they live reports at least four material restrictions out of nine listed (difficulty paying rent, a mortgage or public services, not being able to afford to heat the home, coping with unexpected expenses, regularly eating meat or other proteins, taking holidays, owning a television, a washing machine, a car, a telephone).
As additional insight, the consultation of 6-18 year-olds conducted by UNICEF France aims to get as close as possible to the reality of poverty among children, through the participation of children, by asking them about their perception of their rights and their actual living conditions.
The body of work on the subject aims to better understand the contours of child poverty. However, the latter still struggle to integrate and profoundly influence the approach to child poverty in public policies, both in terms of diagnosis and monitoring.
#Session 2: How to better measure and address child poverty? aims to support and strengthen measures of child poverty, to better understand and monitor the needs of children.
Involvement of cities and territories: “Faced with poverty,
How can cities take action?
Poverty is increasing all over the world, in developing countries but also in high-income countries! But it is not inevitable! For many reasons, Cities appear to be a very relevant bulwark to resist and push it back. Because each situation is confronted with its specificities and realities, the solutions are often local. They exist and deserve to be shared, duplicated, tested on a larger scale or in different contexts.
#Session 1: Involvement of cities and territories. “In the face of poverty, how can cities act?” aims to share initiatives and discover inspiring local actions, implemented by French cities or elsewhere in the world.
How can social protection help reduce the impact of climate change on children?
Children are the least responsible for climate change, but they are the most affected by its consequences. One billion children live in countries at very high risk, and 99% of the world’s children are estimated to be exposed to at least one major climate hazard, shock or stress. Children born today are likely to face seven times more extreme weather events than their grandparents.
Children living in poverty and economic vulnerability are most exposed to environmental degradation and climate change. They are both more likely to suffer the consequences of shocks and are less able to cope with them. An estimated 774 million children are living in poverty and facing high climate risk.
In the face of these risks and the inevitability of climate change-related shocks, social protection can play a crucial role for families. Social protection covers all the policies and programmes needed to reduce the permanent consequences of poverty and exclusion. UNICEF takes a rights-based approach to universal social protection, as enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).
In the face of climate change, social protection can enable families to:
- Reduce needs and improve coping capacity before the shock,
- Protect and mitigate the effects of shocks linked to climate change,
- Improve resilience to cope with future shocks.
Strengthening social protection can be reflected in different types of responses to climate change:
- Mitigating the effects of climate change: by helping to reduce carbon emissions through access to clean energy, by directing investments towards the green economy through social security systems, by limiting the negative impacts on families of mitigation policies (social justice)
- Adaptation to climate change: by strengthening resilience through human capital or new sources of income,
- Losses and damages: by enabling adaptive social protection, by offering additional aid in the event of shocks, in anticipation of a foreseeable shock, or during the recovery period.
While social protection appears to be one of the surest ways to reduce the impacts of climate change on children's rights, it is clear that it often remains one of the least funded sectors by donors, particularly within UNICEF. Also, in a context where funding seems to be lacking or directed towards other priorities, how can we ensure the implementation of universal social protection, which in particular allows the most vulnerable to be protected?
#Session 6: Social protection to reduce the impact of climate change aims to:
- Present the impact of climate change on children and their families,
- Recall the levers for action relating to social protection, and their relevance in the context of climate change,
- Present current global initiatives for strengthening social protection
- Illustrate with concrete examples what effective social protection programs are in the face of climate change
- Consider ways to strengthen initiatives and programs, particularly through climate finance mechanisms.
Private sector: respecting children's rights in the supply chain
Combating labour exploitation, wage levels and exposure to pollution: how can companies better take into account the risks and specificity of children's rights in their supply chains?
While the duty of care is at the heart of recent European and French directives, players from the associative and business worlds will share methodologies and best practices during #Session 5: Respect for children's rights in the supply chain to advance their implementation.
