The experience of childhood is increasingly urban. Over half the world’s people – including more than a billion children – now live in cities and towns.
While cities have long been associated with employment, development and economic growth, hundreds of millions of children in the world’s urban areas are growing up amid scarcity and deprivation. The State of the World’s Children 2012 presents the hardships these children face as violations of their rights as well as impediments to fulfilling the Millennium Development Goals. The report examines major phenomena shaping the lives of children in urban settings, including migration, economic shocks and acute disaster risk.
Progress is possible. The State of the World’s Children 2012 provides examples of efforts to improve the urban realities that children confront and identifies broad policy actions that should be included in any strategy to reach excluded children and foster equity in urban settings riven by disparity.
