This paper was commissioned by Family for Every Child and is part of an inter-agency series on the links between child protection and major development goals. This report focuses on the links between child protection and economic growth. The report acknowledges that economic growth has the potential to improve many outcomes for children and, moreover, economic growth can be enhanced by improvements in child protection, such as children’s education, nutrition, and health. However, the paper also recognizes that economic growth alone is an insufficient indicator of children’s well-being, particularly when such growth occurs without equitable and inclusive social development for children. In periods of rapid growth and development in particular, new opportunities may bring new threats to children’s protection or exacerbate existing threats – a point that is far too often overlooked in discussions of pro-poor growth.
This report, therefore, emphasizes the value of integrating a life cycle approach into the conceptualization of inclusive growth and employment whereby childhood is considered as a time for learning and development, laying the foundations for future social and economic well-being. The paper calls for the increased support and protection of children within the home, and in all other areas of their lives, and urges policymakers to ensure that economic growth results in children becoming more safe rather than less safe.
©Family for Every Child, Better Care Network, Consortium for Street Children, Save the Children, SOS Children's Villages International, Terre de Hommes International Federation, World Vision
