Child poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon and can be measured in many ways.  It is imperative that governments make a commitment to child poverty reduction, recognizing and responding to child poverty is the first priority, alongside building expertise and improved approaches to child poverty measurement.  Understanding child poverty to the fullest possible extent is vital. While an adult may fall into poverty temporarily, falling into poverty in childhood can last a lifetime – rarely does a child get a second chance at an education or a healthy start in life. As such, child poverty threatens not only the individual child, but is likely to be passed on to future generations, entrenching and even exacerbating inequality in society. UNICEF is working to more fully understand how and where children are experiencing poverty, to allow a more nuanced set of policy responses in national mechanisms such as poverty-reduction strategies.

UNICEF has various on-going projects and tools related to child poverty measurement and influencing policies and programming that address child poverty.