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	Multiple threats are converging to leave families reeling by UN News, UNICEF Global Office of Research   Feb. 2023   Multiple threats are converging to leave families reeling, by Jasmina Byrne - Chief of Policy, UNICEF Innocenti – Global Office of Research and Foresight   2022 was incredibly difficult for people around the world. We were confronted by a series of major crises, including a continuing pandemic, a major war in Europe, an energy crisis, rising inflation and food insecurity.   These events hit children particularly hard, compounding the already severe impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Millions of children had to flee their homes because of conflict or extreme weather events. At the same time, child malnutrition and the number of children in need of humanitarian assistance rose.   The war in Ukraine, for example, has led to higher food and energy prices, which in turn has contributed to rising global hunger and inflation.   Efforts to address inflation through rising interest rates in the US have driven up the value of the dollar against other currencies, making developing countries’ imports, debt repayments and their ability to access external financing more difficult.   As we explain in our new report, ‘Prospects for Children in the Polycrisis: A 2023 Global Outlook’, these realities have added up to what has been termed a ‘polycrisis’ – multiple, simultaneous crises that are strongly interdependent.   As we look to 2023, it’s clear that the polycrisis is likely to continue shaping children’s lives. The effects of these intertwined and far-reaching trends will be difficult to untangle, and solutions will be difficult to find as policymakers struggle to keep up with multiple urgent needs.   The situation is particularly dire in economically developing countries. Higher food and energy prices have contributed to a rise in global hunger and malnourishment, with children among the most affected.   The polycrisis is also limiting access to healthcare for many children, making it harder for them to receive treatment and routine vaccinations. Recovery from learning losses caused by the closure of schools will be slow and felt for years to come, while the shift to remote learning has left children from low-income families facing the greatest challenges in catching up.   At the same time, the combination of higher financing needs, soaring inflation and a tighter fiscal outlook will widen the education financing gap needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.   Climate change, too, is also a part of this polycrisis, with visible effects, including devastating floods in Pakistan and droughts in East Africa, making it harder for children to access education, food and healthcare, and causing widespread displacement of populations.   All these factors have led UNICEF to estimate that 300 million children will be in need of humanitarian assistance this year. This staggering number highlights the urgency for international organizations and governments to step in and provide assistance.   But the polycrisis doesn’t have to lead to further instability or, ultimately, systemic breakdown. Some of the stresses we saw in 2022 have weakened somewhat, and new opportunities may arise to alleviate the situation. For example, food and oil prices have dropped from their peaks, and good harvests in some countries may help to lower global food prices.   Fortunately, we know there are solutions and strategies that work. One potential solution is to increase investment in social protection programmes, such as cash transfers and food assistance, which can help alleviate the immediate economic impacts of the polycrisis on families. These programmes can also help to build resilience and reduce vulnerabilities.   The establishment of learning recovery programmes will help tackle the learning losses and prevent children from falling further behind. And early prevention, detection and treatment plans for severe child malnutrition have been effective in reducing child wasting.   Ultimately, a coordinated and collective effort is needed to protect the rights and well-being of children. This includes not only providing immediate assistance but also addressing the underlying causes of the polycrisis and building resilience for the future.   This cannot be achieved without a more coordinated and collective effort from international organizations and governments to help mitigate the effects of the polycrisis and protect children's futures.   And, crucially, we must listen to children and young people themselves so that we can understand the future they want to build and live in.   In fact, we followed this approach when we were assessing trends for ‘Prospects for Children in the Polycrisis’, asking young people from across the world age 16 to 29 to give us their views on some of the challenges their generation faces.   It’s critical that we take action to protect the most vulnerable among us. The future may be uncertain, but by working together we can help to build a better future for our children.   http://www.unicef.org/globalinsight/reports/prospects-children-polycrisis-2023-global-outlook   Oct 2022   Ending Child Poverty: A Policy Agenda. (Global Coalition to End Child Poverty)   This brief highlights the urgency of tackling child poverty and the growing vulnerability of many children around the world due to the COVID-19 pandemic, climate crisis, conflict, and economic instability.   The brief reviews the latest data regarding child poverty and highlights best practices in tackling child poverty.   It draws on evidence and the experience of over 20 organizations working together in the Global Coalition to End Child Poverty.   It outlines key building blocks for how countries can address child poverty and offers evidence and experience to support national discussion on the best policy options for children.   Build national support by ensuring that reducing child poverty is an explicit national priority. Expand child-sensitive social protection. Improve access to quality public services, especially for the poorest children. Promote decent work and inclusive growth agenda to reach families and children in poverty.   The building blocks are discussed as an entry point to identify the types of policies that can help overcome child poverty and its impacts.   http://www.endchildhoodpoverty.org/publications-feed/2022/10/11/briefing-paper   Aug. 2022   UN Global Crisis Response Group on Food, Energy and Finance. (Briefing 3: Extract)   The impacts of the ongoing cost-of-living crisis are being felt widely across the world. Commodity prices remain at a high levels causing difficulties in all regions. The high price volatility witnessed since the pandemic, particularly in 2022, suggests that prices remain at high levels and could rise yet again.   Due to high inflation, the situation has remained tight for billions of people, whose socioeconomic prospects have deteriorated as a result.   Inflation continued to accelerate worldwide in July 2022, breaking multidecade records in advanced economies, developing countries and the least developed countries in particular are experiencing even higher levels of inflation. Food and, especially, energy prices are a major component of recent inflation metrics in many economies.   Prices were already high at the beginning of January 2022, and increases have been broad based, affecting almost all food categories.   Since the beginning of 2020, the vegetable oil price index has more than doubled, that of cereals has increased by over 60 per cent and that of sugar by over 50 per cent.   In addition, as highlighted in GCRG Brief No. 2, if fertilizer shortages continue, the food access crisis in 2022 will be exacerbated by a food availability crisis in 2023.   The consequences of the crisis include worsening nutrition and health outcomes.   In 2020 alone, almost 3.1 billion people could not afford a healthy diet, up by 112 million compared with in 2019, due to the impact of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and related measures.   The cost-of-living crisis, and soaring food prices, make it even more challenging for increasing numbers of people to afford a minimally nutritious and healthy diet.   Before the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the number of chronically undernourished people had already grown by about 150 million since 2019, with up to 828 million people in 2021 affected by chronic hunger (long-term or persistent inability to meet food consumption requirements).   There is also a significant and widening gender gap; in 2021, the gender gap in food insecurity was one percentage point higher than in 2020, with 31.9 per cent of women worldwide moderately or severely food insecure, compared with 27.6 per cent of men. Projections are that in 2022, the number of vulnerable women for whom WFP will provide essential prevention and treatment services has increased by almost 50 per cent.   The United Nations Children’s Fund reports a rapid increase in the number of young children experiencing severe wasting, the most serious form of malnutrition, which has significant implications for life expectancies and well-being.   An increased cost of living leads people to find coping strategies, such as purchasing cheaper and less nutritious food, consuming less diverse diets or skipping meals. This has serious long-term implications for people’s health, with social and economic consequences across societies.   More people are now forecast to be pushed into food insecurity and extreme poverty by the end of 2022. The most recent update from the World Food Programme (WFP) estimates that in 2022, 345 million people will be acutely food insecure in 82 countries with a WFP operational presence, implying an increase of at least 47 million acutely hungry people due to the ripple effects of the war in Ukraine in all its dimensions.   In early July, the United Nations Development Programme estimated that at least 71 million people have already been pushed into poverty in the three months since the start of the war.   In the 62 most vulnerable countries, food import bills have increased by $24.6 billion since the start of the war. The International Monetary Fund now suggests that not only are 60 per cent of low-income countries in debt distress or facing a high risk of debt distress, but so also are 30 per cent of middle-income countries.   Financial conditions in developing countries are worsening, due to a strengthening United States dollar.   Since the beginning of 2022, the currencies of developing economies have depreciated by 5.1 per cent against the U.S. dollar; as a result, developing country debts and import bills are coming under further pressure. Energy prices are still high, suggesting further turmoil in energy markets, with significant global implications..   http://bit.ly/GCRG-BRIEF-03 http://bit.ly/GCRG-Brief-02 http://bit.ly/GCRG-Brief-01   Apr. 2022   1.7 billion people are facing heightened exposure to spiking food, energy, and fertilizer costs   UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has presented the first policy briefing issued by the Global Crisis Response Group on Food, Energy and Finance (GCRG), which was set up to examine the impacts of the war in Ukraine on the world’s most vulnerable.   The Global Crisis Response Group on Food, Energy and Finance was launched in March, in response to concerns over the potential consequences of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as the continuing wide ranging impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The group is tasked to advance collaboration across governments, the multilateral system and a wide range of sectors, to help vulnerable countries avert large-scale crises.   Mr. Guterres pointed out that, whilst most attention is focused on the effects of the war on Ukrainians, it is also having a global impact, in a world that was already witnessing increased poverty, hunger and social unrest.   “We are now facing a perfect storm that threatens to devastate the economies of developing countries”, said the UN chief.   The Ukraine crisis risks tipping up to 1.7 billion people — over one-fifth of humanity — into poverty, destitution and hunger.   Ukraine and the Russian Federation provide 30 per cent of the world’s wheat and barley, one-fifth of its maize, and over half of its sunflower oil. Together, their grain is an essential food source for some of the poorest and most vulnerable people, providing more than one-third of the wheat imported by 45 African and and least-developed countries. At the same time, Russia is the world’s top natural gas exporter, and second-largest oil exporter.   The war has compounded the challenges many developing countries are facing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as historic debt burdens and soaring inflation.   Since the start of 2022, wheat and maize prices have increased by 30 per cent, oil prices have gone up by more than 60 per cent over the last year, and natural gas and fertilizer prices have more than doubled.   At the same time, the UN’s humanitarian operations are facing a funding crunch: the World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that it does not have enough resources to feed hungry people in desperate situations. The agency urgently needs $8 billion to support its operations in countries in humanitarian crisis.   The report, said Mr. Guterres, “shows that there is a direct correlation between rising food prices and social and political instability. Our world cannot afford this. We need to act now”.   The policy brief underlines the importance of global cooperation in tackling the crisis, which, it says, “will leave deep and long-lasting scars”. The report calls on all countries – as well as the private sector, NGOs and other actors – to recognize that “the very nature of increasingly common global shocks is such that countries are not individually responsible”, and that solutions need to be based on the global, rather than national, risk.   The report calls on international financial institutions to release funding for the most vulnerable countries, help governments in developing countries to invest in the poorest and most vulnerable by increasing social protection, and work towards reforming the global financial system so that inequalities are reduced.   Humanitarian appeals, says the policy brief, must be fully funded, and major reform of the international financial system is needed to, in the words of the UN Secretary-General, “pull developing countries back from the financial brink”.   The policy brief calls for a ramped-up deployment of renewable energy to help to ensure that the kinds of energy prices rises currently being seen are not repeated in the future, whilst hastening progress towards a cleaner, low carbon, energy future.   http://news.un.org/en/story/2022/04/1116152 http://news.un.org/pages/global-crisis-response-group/ Visit the related web page
	Strengthening the commitment to combating inequality by Pathfinders, agencies   The current global economic landscape is characterized by unprecedented economic inequality, as evidenced by a Gini coefficient that has reached alarmingly high levels.   We live in a time of extraordinarily high economic inequality. The richest 1% of the global population have more than twice as much income as the poorest half of humanity, and 71 per cent of the world’s population lives in places where inequality has increased.   Billions of people face the terrible hardship of growing poverty and hunger, whilst the number of billionaires has doubled in the last decade. Inequality between countries has also risen for the first time in decades and is at a dangerously high level.   We know that high inequality undermines all our social and environmental goals. The evidence is clear that extreme inequality has a destructive effect on society. Inequality kills. It corrodes our politics, destroys trust, fuels division, hamstrings our collective economic prosperity, and weakens multilateralism. We also know that without a sharp reduction in inequality, the goals of ending poverty and preventing climate breakdown will be in clear conflict.   In 2015, all the governments of the world made history by setting themselves a Sustainable Development Goal to reduce inequalities – SDG10. Yet the UN has reported that SDG 10 is one of the worst-performing SDGs.   To accelerate progress, it is critical to adopt bolder targets and track inequality more accurately. Since the establishment of the SDGs, there have been significant advances in inequality data, such as more accurate estimates of top incomes.   Advancements in inequality measurement, including precise methodologies including tax data analysis and improved top-income estimates, provide a more nuanced understanding of income and wealth distribution.   We believe a move to measuring income and wealth inequality across all levels will galvanize ambitious commitments and inform more effective policymaking, and therefore it is necessary and urgent. Similar indicators can be used to measure between-country inequality.   We therefore urge the United Nations and World Bank to shift to using these more comprehensive indicators to measure country and global inequality through 2030, and support countries’ efforts to better track progress.   As we enter the second half of our path towards the 2030 Agenda, we urge all governments to join us in this effort, so that together we can dramatically reduce inequality and poverty and prevent a deeper climate and social breakdown. Visit the related web page
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