The health and wellbeing of children now and in the future depends on overcoming new challenges that are escalating at such speed as to threaten the progress and successes of the past two decades in child health. The climate emergency is rapidly undermining the future survival of all species, and the likelihood of a world in which all children enjoy their right to health appears increasingly out of reach. A second existential threat that is more insidious has emerged: predatory commercial exploitation that is encouraging harmful and addictive activities that are extremely deleterious to young people’s health.
The WHO–UNICEF–Lancet Commission lays the foundations for a new global movement for child health that addresses these two crises and presents high-level recommendations that position children at the centre of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The paper defines the actions needed to achieve the SDG agenda by laying out a set of entitlements for children and detailing the responsibility of families, communities, and governments, required to deliver them. This includes entitlements for unaccompanied and separated children. The paper also highlights the importance of families in ensuring children receive entitlements and are well cared-for, stating "the realisation of children’s entitlements depends on families. Young children require a stable environment created by parents and other caregivers to ensure good health and nutrition, protection from threats, opportunities for early learning, and love and emotional support."
Overall recommendations in the paper include:
- Invest in children’s health for lifelong, intergenerational, and economic benefits
- Government has a duty of care and protection across all sectors
- Measure how children flourish today, but also how countries’ greenhouse gas emissions are destroying their future
- Adopt a new protocol to the UN CRC to regulate against commercial harm to children
Access the Executive Summary in Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, and Spanish here.
