Caring for Our Future: The Role of Child Wellbeing in Sustainable Development
Each year on September 20th, National Care for Kids Day highlights the importance of providing healthcare, education, and emotional support to children.
This focus aligns with Sustainable Development Goal 3:
Good Health and Well-Being.
Ensuring the wellbeing of all children is essential to building thriving, equitable communities and achieving long-term sustainable development.
The Critical Role of Early Childhood
A mountain of research demonstrates that a child’s experiences in the earliest years lay the foundation for the rest of their lives.
Brains develop rapidly based on children’s environments and caregiving in this developmental window. Positive early childhood experiences boost learning, health, relationships and future success.
Conversely, adversities like poverty, malnutrition, poor healthcare access, lack of nurturing care, or violence can severely hamper development. The damaging effects of early trauma persist well into adulthood. For communities to flourish, all children require quality healthcare, nutrition, education opportunities and emotional support.
Healthcare Access is Vital
Access to preventative healthcare and treatment enables children to survive and thrive. Yet globally, 5.4 million children under 5 died in 2017, mostly from treatable conditions like pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria and malnutrition.
Childhood immunization also remains out of reach for many vulnerable populations despite its unmatched effectiveness. Around 20 million infants yearly do not receive basic vaccines. This leads to preventable outbreaks of infectious diseases like measles and polio in both developing and industrialized nations.
Nutrition Fuels Healthy Growth
Adequate nutrition is critical for children’s healthy physical and cognitive growth. However, over 200 million children globally suffer stunted development due to chronic malnutrition. The deprivation of key micronutrients like iron, iodine and vitamin A also impairs hundreds of millions more.
These deficiencies cannot solely be addressed through emergency food aid. Tackling the root causes requires improving agriculture, infrastructure, gender equality, education, sanitation, and access to healthcare in disadvantaged regions.
Nutrition must be elevated as a key priority within humanitarian and development initiatives.
Education Lays the Foundation
Education is among the most crucial investments society can make in future generations. However, around 258 million children and youth were out of school in 2018, mostly in conflict areas and developing nations.
For girls alone, 132 million were not attending primary or secondary school.
Beyond enrollment, school quality also varies enormously globally due to factors like inadequate resources, facilities, technologies and teacher training. The learning crisis requires expanding access to quality education at all levels, especially for girls and marginalized populations.
Protection from Harm
Far too many children endure abuse, exploitation, neglect, violence, child labor, forced military conscription and other violations of their rights worldwide. These horrific experiences can inflict deep trauma with immense individual and social consequences.
Strong legal protections, social services, community awareness, gender empowerment initiatives and robust law enforcement help safeguard children from harm. But much work remains to eliminate all forms of violence and abuse destroying young lives.
Building Sustainable Futures
On National Care for Kids Day, we must reaffirm our collective responsibility to nurture the boundless potential within every child worldwide. Their wellbeing and opportunities today will shape the progress and prosperity of communities long into the future.
By investing in child health, education, nutrition and safety, we can break entrenched cycles disadvantage. This will lead to more peaceful, equitable and sustainable societies for generations to come.
At HAAMI Sustainability Solutions & Development, our initiatives aim to support organizations worldwide in improving child wellbeing as a key element of sustainable development.
