Championing solutions to end child poverty
Launch event of the UNICEF State of the World’s Children 2025 Report
World Children’s Day, commemorated annually on November 20, is a global moment to advocate, promote, and celebrate children's rights. In 2025, this significant day coincided with the G20 Social Summit in South Africa.
Published since 1980, the State of the World’s Children – UNICEF's flagship report – seeks to deepen knowledge and raise awareness of key issues affecting children, and advocates for solutions that improve children’s lives. The 2025 edition is entitled Ending child poverty: Our shared imperative.
Despite global development gains, child poverty remains widespread, depriving children of their right to grow up healthy, educated, and safe. It undermines progress on multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and is a key driver of intergenerational inequality. Addressing child poverty is not only a moral imperative but also a strategic investment in societies' stability and prosperity.
UNICEF organized a high-level event in partnership with the Government of South Africa to launch the 2025 State of the World’s Children report, which focusses on child poverty. The 2025 Social Summit in South Africa provided an important opportunity to catalyze collective action to tackle child poverty.
Objectives
- Launch and disseminate key findings from The State of the World’s Children 2025: Children Living in Poverty
- Highlight country-level leadership, partnerships and best practices in addressing child poverty
- Encourage political commitments from G20 members and beyond to invest in proven policy solutions to tackle child poverty
- Identify collective actions to accelerate progress to end extreme child poverty and halve multidimensional and monetary child poverty, as per the SDGs
Speakers
- Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, Minister of the Presidency, Government of the Republic of South Africa
- Macaé Evaristo, Minister of Human Rights and Citizenship of Brazil
- Bo Viktor Nylund, Director of UNICEF Innocenti – Global Office of Research and Foresight
- Sampada Tewari, Youth Activist from India
- Hoodah Abrahams-Fayker, National Advocacy Manager, BlackSash, South Africa
- Panel Moderator: Sudeshan Reddy, Communication Specialist, UNICEF South Africa
- Master of Ceremony: Johannes Wedenig, Country Representative, UNICEF South Africa
Read more: The State of the World's Children 2025: Ending child poverty: Our shared imperative
