Social Protection

Child Protection

View also ADB's approach to girls and child trafficking.

Given that children and youth constitute 40% of Asian and Pacific populations, investing in child protection is of profound significance to the region's development.

The realities of child deprivation are alarming in Asia and the Pacific, which holds three quarters of the world's stunted, underweight children.

Lack of adequate protection can result in undernourishment, poor health, and intellectual underdevelopment that leads to less productive adults.

Educating children and youth is essential to allow social mobility and better job prospects. It is an indispensable instrument to help countries maintain their international competitive advantage, raise productivity, and continue economic growth.

As defined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child*, society, through good governance, must provide measures to ensure that the child is protected from all forms of abuse and exploitation. These include child labor, child prostitution, or the adversities faced by the girl child, streetchildren, children with disabilities, and children under armed conflict.

Investment in children is a key factor in poverty reduction and economic growth but it is usually a small proportion of national budgets, despite ample evidence that the small investments currently made bring considerable future benefits to society as a whole.

High child/adult dependency ratios indicate the need to provide social protection for the young such as

• early child development to ensure the balanced psychomotor development of the child through basic nutrition, preventive health and educational programs
• school feeding programs, scholarships, or school fee waivers
• waiving of fees for mothers and children in health services
• streetchildren initiatives
• child rights advocacy/awareness programs against child abuse, child labor etc
• youth programs to avoid marginalization in teenagers, criminality, sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV/AIDS, early pregnancies, and drug addiction
• family allowances either means-tested cash transfers or coupons/stamps for basic goods and services (i.e., food, clothing) to assist families with young children to meet part of their basic needs

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Guidelines

• The Theoretical Background of Child Protection [ PDF: 2,106kb | 42 pages ]
• Drafting Child Protection Projects [ PDF: 1,701kb | 34 pages ]
• Investing in Children [ PDF: 1,019kb | 20 pages ]

Resource Materials

• Street Children
• Working with Street Children - Exploring Ways for ADB Assistance
• At the Margins: Street Children in Asia and the Pacific
• Workshop on Social Protection
• Introduction
• Child Protection

Projects

See ADB Social Protection Projects, 1997-2003: Child Protection for a list of ADB projects with child protection components.