UNICEF warns of a difficult future for children by 2050, in the face of climate crises, demographic shifts and technological inequalities

Antananarivo, 27 November 2024 – The future of children could be at risk unless urgent action is taken to protect children's rights in a rapidly changing world, warns UNICEF in its new flagship report released on World Children's Day.

The report, entitled The State of the World's Children 2024: The Future of Childhood in a Changing World, examines how three major global trends will affect children's lives between now and 2050 and beyond. These major trends – a demographic transition, the climate and environmental crises and frontier technologies – provide key insights into the challenges and opportunities that await children in the world of tomorrow.

In Madagascar, as elsewhere, these trends require urgent adjustments to policies and resources to meet the needs of children in this changing environment.

Regarding the demographic transition: in the coming decades, many regions of the world will experience an ageing population, while some will remain young. Madagascar currently has 14.4 million children; there will be more than 24 million children in 2050, although in percentage terms this will represent 41 per cent of the population, compared to nearly 50 per cent today. Madagascar will therefore be one of the low-income countries with a very large number of children.

The climate and environmental crises are already a well-known threat to the country, which is one of the 10 countries in the world with the highest climate risks for children according to the Children's Climate Risk Index developed by UNICEF in 2021. These crises disrupt children's health, well-being and development as the risk of disease increases due to extreme weather conditions and increasingly violent natural disasters. For example, the incidence of malaria in Madagascar has risen sharply over the last seven years, reaching 2.9 million recorded cases in 2023. Access to drinking water is threatened. Access to a varied and healthy diet is made more difficult, while 24 per cent of Malagasy children already suffer from severe food poverty, eating only one or two food groups out of a total of eight defined food groups.^[1] Air pollution is also harmful to children. Finally, education is also becoming a major challenge. In Madagascar, according to data from the disaster management agency (Bureau national de gestion des risques et des catastrophes, BNGRC), cyclones over the last three years have destroyed or damaged nearly 7,450 schools.

Challenges related to new technologies are the third category. According to data from the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority in 2023, the internet penetration rate reached 32.57 per cent. Not being connected in a digital world means being deprived of present and future opportunities. The absence or instability of the electricity supply and inadequate infrastructure exacerbate the digital divide. In Madagascar, seven out of ten Malagasy people do not have access to electricity.^[2]

Furthermore, as the country is one of 28 countries classified as low-income economies, the challenges facing children living in Madagascar in 2050 will be numerous in the seven areas that the report analysed as the basis for its projections: child survival and life expectancy, socio-economic development, education, gender equality, conflict, urbanisation and the environment.

Finally, the report The State of the World's Children 2024: The Future of Childhood in a Changing World emphasizes the importance of placing children's rights, as set out in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, at the heart of all our strategies, policies and actions. That is why UNICEF Madagascar advocates for concrete actions and programmes in:

• Education, particularly education for the skills of tomorrow, through massive investment in quality education for all children, as well as in digital infrastructure to ensure equitable and responsible access to technology;
• The fight against climate change by establishing resilient services that can withstand shocks, as well as early warning systems, and by continuing to improve disaster preparedness and response systems, prioritizing children's well-being in climate policies and measures;
• The empowerment of young girls through quality education and health services, but also through changing social norms by implementing programmes that promote gender equality.

[1] United Nations Children’s Fund, Child Food Poverty: Nutrition deprivation in early childhood, UNICEF, New York, June 2024.

[2] World Bank, ‘Energy Access in Madagascar’, World Bank, 19 September 2024, https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/video/2024/09/19/energy-access-in-afe-madagascar.