Commemorated every year on October 17th, World Poverty Day is an internationally recognised day to raise awareness about the need to eradicate poverty in all its dimensions. While the world has made great progress in fighting poverty over the past decades, the long-term effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting economic stagnations are threatening these hard-won gains.

UNICEF estimates that currently more than 700 million people live in extreme poverty, of which children are disproportionately affected, representing half of those battling to live on less than $2 a day. Children born into poverty lack adequate living standards, tend to have less academic success than their more affluent counterparts and earn lower wages as adults.

Every country’s most valuable asset is its children, and every country’s development and future relies on healthy, protected, educated and well-developed children.