UNICEF report: Over half a billion
‘uncounted’ children live in countries unable to measure SDG progress
Latest data on development progress for children shows over half a
billion more live in countries where the SDGs are quickly falling out of reach.
NEW YORK, 7 MARCH 2018 – Early assessment of progress toward achieving the
Sustainable Development Goals confirms an alarming lack of data in 64 countries,
as well as insufficient progress toward the SDGs for another 37 countries where
the data can be tracked.
The UNICEF report, Progress for Children in the SDG Era, is
the first thematic report assessing performance toward achieving the SDG global
targets that concern children and young people. The report warns that 520
million children live in countries which completely lack data on at least
two-thirds of child-related SDG indicators, or lack sufficient data to assess
their progress – rendering those children effectively “uncounted.”
Where sufficient data is
available, the scale of the challenge posed by the SDG targets remains daunting.
The report warns that 650 million children live in countries where at least
two-thirds of the SDGs are out of reach without accelerated progress. In fact,
in those countries, even more children could face bad outcomes in life by 2030
than now.
“More than half the world’s children live in
countries where we either can’t track their SDG progress, or where we can and
they are woefully off-track,” said Laurence
Chandy, UNICEF Director for the Division of Data, Research and Policy. “The
world must renew its commitment to attaining the SDGs, starting with renewing
its commitment to measuring them.”
The report tracks progress
on five dimensions of children’s rights: health, learning, protection from
violence and exploitation, a safe environment and equal opportunity. The report
quantifies how far short of the global goals the world is currently expected to
fall, measured in human costs.
- 10 million additional children would
die of preventable causes before their fifth birthday;
- 31 million children would be left stunted
due to lack of adequate nutrition;
- 22 million children would miss out
on pre-primary education;
- 150 million girls will marry before
their 18th birthday;
- 670 million people, many of them
children, will still be without basic drinking water.
“Two years ago, the world agreed on an ambitious
agenda to give every child the best chance in life, with cutting-edge data analysis
to guide the way,” said Chandy. “And yet, what our comprehensive report on SDG
progress for children reveals plainly is an abject lack of data. Most countries
do not have the information even to assess whether they are on track or not.
Children around the world are counting on us – and we can’t even count all of
them.”
The report calls for renewed
efforts to address the global data-deficiency, while recognizing that strong
national data institutions and capacity take time and investment to develop. The
report identifies three principles to underpin this work:
•
Building strong
measurement into service delivery systems, whether in health or education,
social services or border control;
•
Systematic and
coordinated efforts to ensure all countries have minimum data coverage for
children, irrespective of their resources and capabilities;
•
Establishing stronger
shared norms on data concerning children, including common approaches to
measuring emerging threats facing children, capturing missing child
populations, and sharing data to enable vulnerable children to be more
effectively identified, while protecting children’s privacy.
While each government is
ultimately accountable to generate the data that will guide and measure
achievement of the goals, the international community has an obligation to
partner with them to make sure the SDG targets are met.
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