LAUSR

Access to social protection for those who need it is a fundamental human right enshrined in many international treaties, conventions and global commitments: The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Social Protection Floor, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). While these global commitments have generated momentum and push towards universal social protection for all, there are millions of poor children who still do not have access to any type of social protection. A child-sensitive social protection system is one that helps to address specific economic and social vulnerabilities faced by children in their life course. For children this is particularly important because poverty and socio-economic vulnerabilities impact them differently and disproportionately compared to other population groups. UNICEF and World Bank estimated that children are more than twice as likely to struggle to survive on less than Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) US$1.90 per day as adults. Also, children account for more than 50% of the people living with less than PPP US$3.10, while their share of the population is only around 32% (Newhouse et al., 2016). Moreover, for children, poverty is about much more than income, and social protection contributes to the elimination of multidimensional poverty. Living in or being vulnerable to poverty fundamentally undermines children’s futures, often with lifelong consequences, directly impacting their opportunity to access quality social services and, every bit as perniciously, undermining their dignity and confidence. Alongside economic dimensions, social vulnerability also has profound impacts on children’s life chances. Social vulnerability can stem from personal characteristics such as age, disability or chronic illness as well as from social discrimination and exclusion due