UNICEF publishes a new report looking at the key trends affecting children and young people over the next year and beyond.
Prospects for Children: Building Resilient Systems for Children’s Futures is the latest annual report in the Global Outlook series from UNICEF Innocenti – Global Office of Research and Foresight. The report looks at the key issues to watch that have the greatest potential impact on children and young people, and issues a call to action to address current global challenges as well as to use the research to ‘anticipate and prepare for what lies ahead’. 1
The report identified four key ‘issues to watch’:
- geopolitics
- economics
- environment and climate change
- technology. 1
So, let’s look at these issues in a bit more detail.
Geopolitics
“Children’s lives, rights and well-being are increasingly under threat in conflict.”
Over 1 in 6 children lived in areas affected by conflict in 2023 – that’s over 473 million children. Worryingly, this number is likely to have risen further in 2024 and the percentage of children affected by conflict has almost doubled from what it was in the 1990s. 1
Economics
“Economic prospects in emerging markets are discouraging.”
Growth prospects for emerging markets has fallen to 4 percent by 2026-2029, which is below the historical average of 5.6 percent and well below the Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs) target of 7 percent. Tax revenues in many developing economies are lower than what is needed to fund basic services. Debt is a real issue, with developing countries spending around 14 percent of government revenues on interest payments alone. Over 40 low-income countries are spending twice as much on debt servicing than on health and, in comparison to developing countries, they are spending 11 times as much on debt servicing as on social protection. 1
Environment and climate change
“Children are disproportionality impacted by climate change due to their unique physiological and developmental characteristics.”
By 2100, global temperatures are on track to rise by at least 2 degrees Celsius and children under 5 will hold 88% of the ‘global disease burden’. 1
Technology
Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) ‘can play a crucial role in advancing children’s wellbeing’ but it is ‘not inherently inclusive’. While it can offer equitable access to essential digital public services and drive effective digital transformation that “drives development, inclusion, trust, innovation and respect for human rights”, there are major barriers to digital access in the least developed countries in particular, e.g., only 53% of 15-24 year olds in Africa are online. Access is even more inequitable for children and young people with disabilities and for girls and young women. For example, in low income countries, 9 out of 10 girls and young women between 15 and 24 are offline. 1
References
- Unicef Innocenti (2025) ‘Prospects for Children: Building Resilient Systems for Children’s Futures’. Available at: https://www.unicef.org/innocenti/media/10341/file/UNICEF-Innocenti-Prospects-for-Children-Global-Outlook-2025.pdf (Accessed: 10 June 2025)
