Child poverty and child rights in developing countries This short report presents the first ever scientific measurement of the extent and depth of child poverty in all the developing regions of the world. It represents a summary of a much larger research report on child poverty and child rights funded by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) (Gordon et al, 2001, 2003). Full details of this research will be published in a future book on this subject. This measurement of child poverty is based on internationally agreed definitions arising from the international framework of child rights. In successive annual reports, UNICEF has argued that poverty is one of the greatest obstacles to the survival and development of children. The near-consensus reached by all national governments in framing the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child gave momentum to serious and effective work to reduce violations of a number of rights relevant to the reduction of child poverty in different countries. Poverty denies children their fundamental human rights. Severe or extreme poverty can cause children permanent damage – both physically and mentally – stunt and distort their development and destroy opportunities of fulfilment, including the roles they are expected to play successively as they get older in family, community and society. Both research and administrative data show that investment in basic social services for children is a key element to ensure success in alleviating their poverty. It also shows that a minimal level of family resources to enable parents to meet the needs of their children are required – even when families are prepared to put their own needs or the needs of work and other social claims on them in second place. If there are insufficient resources to satisfy children’s needs – however hard parents can be shown to try – then this can cause other obligations and relationships to crumble. This is why UNICEF insists that “poverty reduction begins with children”. The World Declaration and Plan of Action adopted by the World Summit for Children in 1990 set forth a vision of a ‘first call’ for children by establishing seven major and 20 supporting goals that were quantifiable and considered achievable by 2000. UNICEF has reported on progress towards these goals1 . In 2000, it was found that some of the trends in the 1980s and 1990s had deepened rather than lifted public concern. Since 1987, the number of people in developing countries, other than in East Asia and the Pacific, with less than $1 a day, had increased by 12 million a year. In many countries, the extreme poor had been “left further behind”. And “the evidence is compelling that the 1990s saw a widening in the gap between rich and poor countries as well as between rich and poor people within countries, both in terms of incomes and social