Annual priorities
For every child, the answers we need
Priority areas | Recent and upcoming products
Every year, the UNICEF Innocenti – Global Office of Research and Foresight sets a research and foresight agenda. For 2024, we will focus on three main issues, and the questions that they provoke, such as:
The future of childhood
- What will the future hold for children’s lives and their rights?
- How can we make the most of emerging digital technology and design digital play in ways that promote children’s well-being?
- What will be the role of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) in children’s lives?
Education and learning
- Why aren’t children learning?
- Why are women underrepresented in leadership roles in education?
- How can we help young people learn new skills for a green economy?
- How can we help national education systems include refugee learners?
- What works to ensure digital learning for every child?
Child rights and voices of young people
- How can children’s rights be advanced in a digital age?
- What approaches work in reducing violence against children and women in the home?
- How can social protection programmes achieve both gender equality and poverty reduction?
- Are the rights and well-being of marginalized children in wealthy countries being protected?
Throughout the year, answers to these questions will emerge in global research and foresight papers on digital learning, children with disabilities, education, and social protection and gender equality. Some of the highlights of the year will include The State of the World’s Children 2024 and The Global Outlook – Prospects for Children 2025.
Recent products
The State of the World’s Children 2024: The Future of Childhood
This year, UNICEF's flagship report analyzes how megatrends like climate change, demographics and frontier technologies will shape children’s lives in 2050. This report also examines how societies, governments and the international community need to respond if we are to shape the best possible future for children.
Improving Education in Africa
This report synthesizes findings from primary research conducted in 33 African countries. The paper argues for three points of leverage with the potential to be transformative: strengthening existing investments in the education workforce, infrastructure and curriculum; increasing emerging investments in early childhood education, digital learning and supports for the most marginalized; and engaging local communities for effective implementation of education policies.
Prospects for Children in 2025: Building Resilient Systems for Children’s Futures
This annual report undertakes horizon scanning to identify emerging future trends across themes such as the economy, human capital, governance, society, multilateralism, technology and climate. It offers recommendations for policy and action to ensure that children thrive in the face of these trends.
Upcoming products
Unlocking the Potential of the AfCFTA for Africa's Young Population
This report looks at how trade agreements can be an engine to protect and advance children’s and young people’s well-being and development. Using foresight analysis and exploring possible future scenarios, the report highlights the long-term impacts of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) on human capital outcomes.
Emerging Breakthroughs on Climate Change
This publication is grounded in a comprehensive trend analysis and horizon scanning exercise conducted by UNICEF Leading Minds Fellows on Climate. Fellows embarked on an in-depth exploration to scan and identify over 150 signals of potential climate breakthroughs across the five LMC on Climate Action thematic areas.
UNICEF's Role in Championing Children's Rights in Climate Action in Partnership with Young People
This brief emerged from the Leading Minds Fellowship on Climate and aims to serve as an organization-wide functional stock-take of UNICEF’s work with adolescents and youth on climate. It emphasizes the need for a systematic mapping of efforts with a clear theory of impact, and for scaled investment to address the barriers hindering child and youth-led climate activism, advocacy, research, innovation, and programmes. It also calls for the elevation of the child rights agenda within climate frameworks.
