What does the future have in store for children?

The world is facing a new and intensifying era of crisis for children. Many of these crises – including climate change, conflict and economic instability – are closely interconnected. They reflect a world of rising geopolitical tensions and competition among nations, which are hindering the implementation of solutions.

To uphold children’s rights and well-being throughout 2025 and beyond, action is needed to rethink and strengthen systems. Systems approaches (that is, approaches that go beyond mere service delivery) are essential to build resilience into every area of children’s lives, whether it is disaster preparedness frameworks that safeguard schools and communities, education systems that can adapt during emergencies, or inclusive health-care systems that respond to immediate needs while planning for future risks.

These systems must not only address current global challenges but also anticipate and prepare for what lies ahead, including in the areas of geopolitics, economics, environment and climate change, technology and governance.

The year ahead will bring important developments across all these critical areas. Let’s break down each of them, beginning with geopolitics.

Children’s lives, rights and well-being are increasingly under threat in conflict. Over 473 million children – more than one in six globally – lived in areas affected by conflict in 2023, a number that is likely to have risen in 2024. The percentage of children affected by conflict has almost doubled to almost 19 per cent today from around 10 per cent in the 1990s.

Challenges to respect for legal norms in armed conflict reflect a weakening in the ability of multilateral systems to respond. Core mechanisms of the United Nations have faced escalating challenges, with the United Nations Security Council effectively deadlocked. United Nations peacekeeping and special political missions are also in steep decline. These issues reflect seismic power shifts at the global level and a declining respect for the rule of law at national levels.

Some encouraging initiatives have emerged to strengthen accountability, including the rise of ‘minilateralism’ – less formal and more flexible groupings that include a mix of state and other actors. Despite such initiatives, a concerted and sustained effort from the international community is needed to reverse the losses of recent years.

Protracted crises are not neatly compartmentalized into emergency, recovery or peace phases. As a result, traditional siloed responses often prove insufficient. The United Nations’ Triple Nexus approach – which links humanitarian action, development and peacebuilding – provides an alternative approach. It can support integration of short-term relief with long-term resilience and peace efforts to address the root causes of instability, vulnerability and violence, including child-rights violations.

So, what is the road ahead for geopolitics? Strong legal frameworks foster an environment where compliance with child-rights law and international humanitarian law is non-negotiable and accountability inevitable. For these to be realized, international standards need to be translated into enforceable national law, policy and security-sector practice.

Meanwhile, economic prospects in emerging markets are discouraging, with growth well below the 7 per cent target set in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). A mix of pandemic scarring, climate shocks, and resource constraints means emerging markets’ growth prospects have fallen from historical averages of 5.6 per cent to just 4 per cent by 2026–2029.

Governments’ coffers are being hit by a mix of weak tax revenues, declining aid and rising debt. Tax revenues of around 11 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in many developing economies are lower than the 15 per cent considered necessary to fund basic services. Although overseas development assistance (ODA) has hit record levels, it increasingly targets humanitarian crises rather than long-term development funding. And rising debt is creating unprecedented budget pressures: developing countries now spend 14 per cent of government revenues on interest payments alone – double what they spent 15 years ago.

Nearly 400 million children live in countries in debt distress, which is squeezing out essential investments in their futures. Among the 34 African Union countries with available data, 15 now allocate more to debt servicing than to education. Over 40 low-income countries globally spend twice as much on debt servicing as on health, including some countries with very large child populations. In social protection, debt service now consumes 11 times as much as social protection spending across developing countries.

The failure to invest in children not only harms children’s lives today (and their lifetime prospects), but also undermines countries’ long-term capacity to repay their debts. Just as responsible lenders ensure clients can generate returns to repay loans, the international financial system must acknowledge that undermining investments in children makes future debt repayment impossible.

So, what next in economics? In 2025, the global financial system faces crucial decisions at the Fourth Financing for Development Conference in Seville about reforms to the international financial architecture (IFA) – the “framework of institutions, policies, rules and practices that govern the global financial system”. These have the potential to reshape the financial landscape, prioritizing sustainable development, intergenerational equity and investment in children. Key themes could include a ‘Children’s Debt Reset’, automatic triggers for debt service suspension, improved access to concessional finance and increased transparency in ODA.

When it comes to environment and climate change, the outlook for children is increasingly worrying in a world that is now on track to see global temperatures rise by at least 2°C by 2100. Children are disproportionately impacted by climate change due to their unique physiological and developmental characteristics. Children under five years of age bear 88 per cent of the global disease burden associated with climate change.

Opportunities for progress for children are evident in four areas of governance – national planning, climate financing, business regulation and climate litigation.

Revisions to Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) have potential to take stronger account of children’s critical vulnerabilities and needs. NDCs are expected to evolve to demonstrate how governments will increase both the pace and scale of ambition and advance implementation to achieve it.

Financing mechanisms are critical enablers for the NDCs, but – despite progress at the 2024 Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) – financing needs are far from being met. Only 2.4 per cent of multilateral climate finance is characterized as being child-responsive, and additional and targeted finance is critical to address loss and damage.

Environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) regulatory frameworks are receiving increased focus, reflecting regulatory change in the European Union (EU) and market demand for transparency and accountability in sustainable investments. A specific child-rights lens on sustainability is needed if companies are to manage and address risks to children.

Climate litigation is becoming a powerful tool for climate action and justice, with children increasingly recognized as rightful claimants. The year ahead is expected to bring a landmark ruling from the International Court of Justice on the obligations of governments to protect the climate system and the legal consequences of failing to meet those obligations.

To address the critical intersection of climate action and child rights, action is needed to ensure national policy frameworks more explicitly incorporate child rights through dedicated commitments, timelines and funding allocations. On funding, climate finance should include earmarked funding for child-centred climate initiatives. On regulation, strengthening legally backed climate reporting and monitoring are key to effective climate action for children.

And then there is technology. Amid rapid adoption around the world, digital public infrastructure (DPI) can fundamentally shift how governments engage with citizens. But what is DPI? It is sometimes compared to physical infrastructure: just as roads and railways connect people and allow them to access goods and services, DPI provides the basis for the large-scale delivery of digital public services, including for children and their families.

DPI can play a crucial role in advancing children’s well-being by ensuring equitable access to essential services such as education, health care and social protection. For example, digital IDs linked to electronic civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems can help people throughout their lives by providing a single source of identification across systems. Digital payment infrastructures can facilitate seamless disbursement of financial support for families and children, and reduce risks associated with theft or loss.

DPI represents far more than a technological advance. It can fundamentally shift how governments serve and engage with their citizens, including children. It can also be central to providing effective digital governance, promoting rules that drive development, inclusion, trust, innovation, and respect for human rights.

But DPI is not inherently inclusive. Persistent inequalities in digital access, particularly in the least developed countries, are a major barrier to ensuring DPI serves every child and community. While most young people are connected to the internet in high-income countries, only 53 per cent of youth (15–24-year-olds) are online in Africa. Adolescent girls are particularly affected, as are children with disabilities, with 9 out of 10 adolescent girls and young women (aged 15–24 years) offline in low-income countries.

So, DPI systems have immense potential to transform public services for children and families. In doing so, they must prioritize children’s rights and truly serve the best interests of every child. Key priorities include enabling seamless, safe and secure data exchange between health, education and social services to create a holistic support system for child development; factoring in the needs and sensitivities of vulnerable and marginalized groups; and empowering children, youth and their families through digital financial inclusion and literacy.

Finally, there is global governance. New and ongoing crises will continue to challenge the future of global governance. In 2025, nations and institutions must address the critical question of whether the global multilateral framework will unify to form a cohesive response to our shared challenges or fragment further, risking a loss of collective action.

Progress for children requires stronger alignment between global and national priorities. Strengthening national systems and aligning them with global frameworks is central to achieving shared global goals in areas such as health, education, safety, poverty eradication and climate adaptation. Such alignment creates a foundation of resilience, by harmonizing standards and approaches, pooling resources and integrating responses to crises.

Robust national systems are key to ensuring that interventions can be brought to scale. They provide the infrastructure, governance and accountability required to expand successful initiatives nationally or even regionally. Well-functioning systems standardize processes and policies, enabling consistent and equitable implementation across diverse contexts while fostering innovation and adaptability.

Progress demands action on multiple fronts, including developing shock-responsive systems, strengthening financing and building public–private collaboration.

Shock-responsive systems contribute to resilient health care, child protection, education, social protection, water and sanitation systems, ensuring these essential services are still provided in emergencies. In addition, enhanced foresight analysis capacities and anticipatory governance tools are critical to protecting children’s well-being in the face of increasingly frequent shocks.

Sustainable financing is essential for national systems to support children. A comprehensive approach should include child-centred budgeting and targeted allocations. Debt restructuring is also a priority, with the aim of redirecting funds from debt servicing to health, education and social protection.

Private sector expertise in technology and finance can significantly enhance public sector efforts to serve children and families. In addition, environmental, social and governance (ESG) frameworks provide a critical foundation for evaluating corporate practices to ensure that private investment aligns with social equity, environmental sustainability, and the protection of children’s rights.

This explainer is adapted from Prospects for Children: Building Resilient Systems for Children’s Futures, the 2025 edition of the UNICEF Innocenti's annual Global Outlook. Read the full report.