State Of The World’s Children 2024:
The world is facing an unprecedented crisis with nearly half of all children – about 1 billion – living in countries that face a high risk of climate and environmental hazards, the UNICEF’s State of the World’s Children 2024 (SOWC-2024) report said recently.
State of the World’s Children (SOWC) Report:
- It is the annual flagship publication of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
- The report closely examines a key issue affecting children.
- These have ranged from children with disabilities, conflict and war, child labour, urbanization, early childhood development, and much more, making it the most comprehensive analysis of global trends that impact children.
- The report includes supporting data and statistics.
Highlights of SOWC-2024:
- This year, the SOWC was launched on 20 November, celebrated globally as World Children’s Day–UNICEF’s annual day of action for and by children, with focus on ‘Listen to the Future,’ voices of children and young people on the world they want.
- The report explores three megatrends that will profoundly impact children’s lives between now and 2050: demographics shifts, the climate and environmental crises and frontier technologies.
- The report projects that by 2050, the global child population will stabilize around 2.3 billion, with a significant shift in regional distributions.
- India, China, Nigeria and Pakistan are expected to account for more than a third of the world’s child population by 2050.
- India is estimated to have the largest share at 350 million, despite a decline of 106 million compared to today.
- Nearly one billion children worldwide face extreme vulnerability to climate and environmental hazards, with Indian children disproportionately affected.
- According to the Children’s Climate Risk Index (CCRI), in 2021, India ranked 26th out of 163 ranked countries globally, with children particularly exposed to risks such as extreme heat, floods, droughts, and air pollution.
- By 2050, as the report has cautioned, children, not only in India, but also worldwide, will face dramatically increased exposure to extreme climate and environmental hazards.
- It predicts that nearly eight times more children will be exposed to extreme heat waves compared to the 2000s.
- The digital divide remains stark. In 2024, over 95 percent of people in high-income countries are connected to the internet, compared to nearly 26 percent in low-income countries.
