Securing India's children

Stronger systems can build the future

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The report “State of the World’s Children (SWOC) 2025” — by the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) — states that while global extreme child poverty is declining, India still carries one of the largest burdens of multidimensionally deprived children.

About 206 million Indian children experience at least one deprivation, and one third of them (62 million) face two or more, reflecting gaps in education, health, housing, nutrition, sanitation, and water. Climate change now exposes four of five of the world’s children to at least one extreme climate hazard annually. Conflict, too, affects childhood more than ever: About 19 per cent of the world’s children lived in conflict-affected areas in 2024, double the share in the mid-1990s. Further, development-aid cuts could lead to 4.5 million additional under-five deaths by 2030 and push six million children out of school by next year.