On September 13, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Bank (WB) released a report showing that the Covid-19 pandemic has slowed progress in helping children escape poverty, with 333 million children worldwide still living in extreme poverty.

Africa is home to the highest number of children living in extreme poverty in the world. The report found that 40% of children in sub-Saharan Africa still live in extreme poverty.

According to the report, efforts to lift children out of poverty have been affected and slowed down, losing the opportunity to change the lives of 30 million children. As a result, about 17% of the world's children still live on less than $2.15 a day.

The figure of 333 million children is down from the 356 million children worldwide suffering from extreme poverty that UNICEF estimated in 2020, but not by much. Meanwhile, the United Nations' goal is to eliminate extreme poverty among children by 2030.

Compounding crises caused by the impact of Covid-19, conflict, climate change and economic shocks have slowed progress in eradicating hunger, leaving millions of children living in extreme poverty, said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.

World Bank senior official Luis-Felipe Lopez-Calva expressed concern about “a world where 333 million children live in extreme poverty – deprived not only of basic needs but also of dignity, opportunity and hope.”

In recent years, a combination of rapid population growth, the Covid-19 pandemic and climate-related disasters have exacerbated extreme child poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, while other parts of the world have seen steady improvement.

The World Bank and UNICEF call on countries to prioritize addressing child poverty and encourage the adoption of measures to address the problem.

Minh Hoa (t/h)