Discussion: Child-lens Investing
To unlock children’s full potential, we must harness the power and scale of global capital markets to work alongside governments, civil society, and philanthropy.
Highlights
As we approach the 2030 deadline for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it is critical now, more than ever, to place children at the center of efforts to close the US$ 4.2. trillion financing gap needed to achieve these goals.
Half of the world's 2.2 billion children are unable to access basic needs like safe water and nutritious foods. Revolutionary change is needed to make sure children do not inherit an inhospitable world, ravaged by climate change and underserved by fragile institutions and weak economies, with unconscionable levels of poverty.
UNICEF is leading the effort to develop a child-lens investing framework that enables investors to: positively impact the whole child ecosystem; consider the larger context in which children are raised; and complement existing investment processes and impact themes (i.e. climate investing, gender-lens investing, etc.).
This discussion paper collates preliminary considerations on child-lens investing and the accompanying toolkit lays out approaches both asset owners and managers can adopt to operationalize investing with a child-lens.
These documents showcase UNICEF's preliminary thoughts on child-lens investing and will serve as a foundation for collaborative efforts with various external stakeholders worldwide to establish a comprehensive framework that harnesses finance for the benefit of children.
If you are interested in pioneering the field of child-lens investing and would like to contribute to the development of this framework, please reach out to us at IF-Hub@unicef.org.
