FAIR SHARE FOR CHILDREN
VIRTUAL, SEPTEMBER 2020
As part of its continued efforts to highlight the situation facing vulnerable and exploited children as a result of COVID-19, Laureates and Leaders for Children 2020 focused on government engagement and commitments in the lead-up to the 75th Session of the UN General Assembly.
ABOUT THE 2020 SUMMIT
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the entire world, but far from being an ‘equaliser’, it has demonstrated that marginalised communities are the least able to practise protective measures against the virus and its impacts and has exacerbated many inequalities they have long faced.
This is being entrenched by the inequality of the world’s response to date, which has seen trillions announced for the richest parts of the world and almost nothing for the most marginalised children. Despite these unprecedented amounts allegedly intending to support the global economy, it will not touch the majority of the people who work in it. Just a fraction has been allocated to those whose lives are most at stake from the multidimensional impacts of COVID-19. As a result, COVID-19 has turned the clock back a decade or more on progress made on child labour, education, and health for hundreds of millions of children.
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However, the realisation of a fair allocation of the global response to COVID-19 would be transformative. The Fair Share For Children Summit called for one trillion dollars to fund all outstanding UN and charity COVID-19 appeals, cancel two years of all debt repayments from low-income countries, and fund two years of the global gap to meet the SDGs on health, water and sanitation, and education.
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Exploring four key themes of food insecurity and hunger, child labour, education, and children on the move, 11 Nobel Peace Laureates, 20 global leaders, and 10 youth and student activists led an impassioned summit to demand justice for children during the global pandemic.
The Fair Share for Children Summit continued the important demands made by 88 Nobel Laureates and world leaders early in the pandemic. Concerned by the impact of COVID-19 on vulnerable communities including the poor, women and girls, daily wage earners, migrant labourers, indigenous peoples, victims of trafficking and slavery, child labourers, people on the move, and people with disabilities, Laureates and Leaders for Children released the joint statement, demanding that 20% of relief funds to fight the pandemic should be specifically allocated to the world’s 20% most marginalised.
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The Fair Share for Children report, 'Preventing the Loss of a Generation to COVID-19', was launched during the summit. The report found that just 0.13% of the $8 trillion COVID financial relief went to multilateral appeals for those most vulnerable to the pandemic-induced economic crisis.
