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THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN

2015: Executive Summary

Reimagine the future

nnovation for

every

child

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Around the world, an innovation revolution for children

is growing – often in the most unexpected places – and

increasingly led by young people themselves.

Fueled by creativity, connectivity and collaboration, new ways

of solving problems are emerging – in tech design studios and

university laboratories, in development organizations and

corporations, and in kitchens and community centres.

To mark the 25th anniversary of the Convention of the Rights

of the Child, this edition of

The State of the World’s Children

highlights the work of remarkable young innovators who are

already reimagining the future – and invites the world to join

this rising movement to advance the rights of every child.

#EVERYchild

Published by UNICEF

Division of Communication

3 United Nations Plaza

New York, NY 10017, USA

[email protected]

www.unicef.org

http://data.unicef.org

ISBN: 978-92-806-4780-8

The State of the World’s Children 2015: Reimagine the Future: Innovation

for Every Child

digital report is available at <http://sowc2015.unicef.org>

November 2014

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THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN

2015: Executive Summary

Reimagine the future

nnovation for

every

child

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PHOTO CREDITS

Cover and page i: © UNICEF/UNI161865/Holt

Page iii: © UNICEF/NYHQ2011-1485/Friedman

Page 1: © UNICEF/NYHQ2014-1956/Pirozzi

Page 3: © UNICEF/UKLA2013-04413/Brooks

Page 5: © UNICEF/UGDA201300462/Nakibuuk

Page 6: © T. Woodson

Page 7: © UNICEF/BANA2014-01619/Mawa

Page 8: © UNICEF/SLRA2013-0102/Asselin

Page 9: © UNICEF Kenya/2013/Huxta

Page 11: © UNICEF/NYHQ2011-1645/Pirozzi

Page 13: © S. Banerjee

Page 14: © UNICEF/CHNA2014-00011/Liu

Page 15: © S. Collins

Page 16, left: © J. Radner

Page 16, right: © T. Katsiga

Page 17: © M. Rezwan

Page 18: © GreenWood

Page 19: © M. Rezwan

Page 20, left: © C. Wong

Page 20, right: © UNICEF/NYHQ2007-2363/LeMoyne

Page 21: © UNICEF/NYHQ2013-1479/Pirozzi

Page 22: © J. Sutz

Page 23: © UNICEF/NYHQ2014-1870/Khizanis

Page 24: © UNICEF/ETHA2013_00312/Ose

Page 25: © UNICEF/PFPG2014P-0951/Boughan

Page 26: © Raspberry Pi Foundation

November 2014

Permission is required to reproduce any part of this publication. Permission

will be freely granted to educational or non-profit organizations. Others will be

requested to pay a small fee. Please contact:

Division of Communication, UNICEF

Attn: Permissions

3 United Nations Plaza, New York, NY 10017 USA

Tel: +1 (212) 326-7434

Email: [email protected]

The

State of the World’s Children 2015: Reimagine the Future: Innovation

for Every Child

digital report is available at <http://sowc2015.unicef.org>. The

‘Stories’ essays included in the report and summarized in the present Executive

Summary represent the personal views of the authors and do not necessarily

reflect the position of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

For latest data, please visit <www.childinfo.org>.

ISBN: 978-92-806-4780-8

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ABOUT THE REPORT

s the world marks 25 years of the Convention on the Rights of

the Child,

The State of the World’s Children

calls for brave and

fresh thinking to address age-old problems that still affect the most

disadvantaged children. In particular, the report calls for innovation –

and for the best and brightest solutions coming from communities

to be taken to scale to benefit every child.

The Convention itself was an innovation that recognized children as

people with rights that must be respected equally to the rights of

adults. It has helped drive remarkable progress for millions of chil-

dren, but far too many are still being left behind.

The report highlights how new ways of solving problems – often

emerging from local communities and young people themselves

– can help us overcome age-old inequities that prevent mil-

lions of children from surviving, thriving and making the most of

their potential.

To finish unfinished business, we need to innovate. This means

creating interconnected systems and new networks of problem-

solvers that cross sectors, generations and geographies. It means

scaling up local solutions to solve global challenges – and adapting

them in new contexts. It means shaping new markets and spurring

the private sector to design for development. It means creating

solutions together with communities, and with a view to including

all their members – preventing innovation from widening gaps. It

means doing things differently, to drive change for children.

In that spirit, this year’s

State of the World’s Children

is different.

It is inspired by the remarkable work unfolding in countries and

communities around the world. It is guided by the principles for

inclusive innovation that UNICEF is helping to develop. And much

of its content is crowdsourced – emerging out of the experiences

and insights of people who are actively working to make the world

better for every child.

Reimagine the future: Innovation for

every

child

iii

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Over the past year, UNICEF has convened a continuing series

of Activate Talks, global symposia that are bringing together

young inventors, innovators, business people, artists and

others to talk about the innovation they see, need and are

helping to drive. Many of their stories are included in the

essays and ideas presented here. In fact, this year’s report

includes the greatest number of essays – by the greatest

number of young people – since UNICEF published the first

State of the World’s Children

in 1980.

This is also the first fully digital

State of the World’s Children,

with interactive, multimedia and traditional content. Users are

invited to personalize their experience by browsing through

categories or by tailoring the content with a series of tags,

allowing them to engage with the ideas that mean the most

to them. The digital platform also connects them to an inno-

vation community and a constellation of open-source ideas

through an interactive world map.

We invite you to join this conversation, share your own ideas

and experience, and create connections that might just bring

about exponential change for the most disadvantaged chil-

dren. Who knows what ideas you might inspire, what actions

you might inform, what collaborators you might find, what

change you might make.

Don’t think of this as UNICEF’s report. Think of it as yours.

CONTENTS

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Shaping change to benefit all children ..........1

An unfairly distributed future .........................3

Innovating for equity .......................................5

Many voices, many stories .............................8

THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN 2015: Executive Summary

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PART 1

Shaping change to benefit all children

The world is changing rapidly. Where there were around 5 billion

people in 1990, by 2050 there will nearly 10 billion – more than

2.6 billion of them younger than 18. Many children born today will

enjoy vast opportunities unavailable 25 years ago. But not all will

have an equal chance to grow up healthy, educated and able to fulfil

their potential and become fully participating citizens, as envisioned

in the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The magnitude of change and the scope of new ideas we witness

today are remarkable – but they also often represent extreme disparity.

Consider this: today, Internet giants can instantly identify you, predict

your likes and dislikes, and build a detailed profile of who you are by

using sophisticated algorithms. Yet, one child in three doesn’t have a

legal identity – because the simple process of registering her or

his birth did not occur.

In some places, cars operate on electricity alone – or even with-

out a human being behind the wheel. Yet, elsewhere, critical

medical forms must be filled out by hand – and a lack of infra-

structure means the forms can take 30 days to travel from a rural

clinic to a laboratory in the capital.

As the global development community plots its course for the

post-2015 era beyond the Millennium Development Goals, it

must ask: will rapid change accentuate or diminish the extremes

that separate children who want for almost nothing and those

who are deprived of almost everything?

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The answer to this question is not predetermined; there is a

choice to be made. Will governments, the development and

humanitarian communities, and partners in civil society, busi-

ness and academia continue on the same path, recording

incremental improvements in the situations of children but not

closing the gaps? Or can we be bolder, trying out unconven-

tional approaches and looking for solutions in new places to

accelerate progress towards a future in which all children can

enjoy their rights?

Children are being born into an increasingly connected world

where lines between local and global problems are blurred.

Global warming brings flooding to coastal towns even as it

afflicts inland farms with drought. Disease and conflict spill over

international borders. Curbs on migration or remittances rob

migrant workers’ children in faraway countries of the means to

eat well and go to school.

Solutions, too, are increasingly interwoven. In our hyper-con-

nected, globalized world, people, technologies and ideas move

more fluidly than ever before, generating unprecedented oppor-

tunities for collaboration to create large-scale change. Indeed, a

global infrastructure of exploration is beginning to emerge – with

innovators sharing ideas across borders and among groups of

people previously excluded from the marketplace of knowledge

and ideas.

These innovators are pushing the boundaries of the possible,

often starting with small solutions to local problems that have

the potential to spark change and help more children gain access

to the services and opportunities that are theirs by right – but

not always in reality.

To expand the impact of these innovations, we need to

unleash systems that can help bring the most promising new

ideas to scale. Greater interconnectivity is already facilitat-

ing broader collaboration between the private sector, with

its speed, agility and drive to reinvent, and the development

world, with its ability to convene partnerships, inform policies

and implement solutions on the ground. The same connec-

tivity needs to be accessible to grass roots problem-solvers

– helping create a truly global collaborative workspace capable

of forging solutions that bring more equal access to goods,

services and opportunities to millions of people.

To minimize the risks of change and maximize its benefits

for the most disadvantaged children, we need new products

and processes, new partners and new models of partnership.

These must be accessible to and influenced by disadvantaged

and vulnerable people, and grounded in a better under-

standing of their realities and needs. For innovation alone

is not enough; we need innovation that both embodies and

advances inclusion and opportunity for all children.

The good news – as shown in this year’s

State of the World’s

Children

– is that innovation is already happening, in places

you might not always imagine, delivering solutions today that

have the potential to change the lives of millions of children

for years to come. The future is already present. What we

make of it is up to us.

THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN 2015: Executive Summary

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PART 2

An unfairly distributed future

Twenty-five years ago, the United Nations General Assembly

adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Since then, millions of children have benefited from progress.

When governments, their international partners, businesses and

communities have matched their obligations under the Convention

with money and energy, they have saved and improved the lives of

hundreds of millions of children. While the magnitude of progress

has been profound in key areas – child survival, education, access

to clean water – too many children still confront the future with

their needs unaddressed, their rights unrealized and their potential

thwarted.

The world’s low-income countries remain home to concentra-

tions of poverty and disadvantage, but many impoverished

children live in middle-income countries – countries plagued with

large income inequalities. Here, as elsewhere, deprivation is

disproportionately concentrated in urban slums and remote rural

areas and among such marginalized groups as ethnic minorities

and people with disabilities.

Even the safety of a child’s arrival in this world remains subject to

the lottery of where she was born and whether her family

is well off – and the inequity extends throughout childhood

and beyond.

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The richest 20 per cent of the world’s women are 2.7 times more likely than the

poorest 20 per cent to have a skilled attendant present at delivery. In South Asia, the

richest women are nearly four times more likely than the poorest to have this benefit.

Worldwide, 79 per cent of the richest children under the age of 5 have their births

registered but only 51 per cent of the poorest enjoy the right to an official identity.

And while 80 per cent of children living in cities are registered, this is true for only

51 per cent of those living in the countryside.

The poorest 20 per cent of the world’s children are twice as likely as the richest

20 per cent to be stunted by poor nutrition and to die before their fifth birthday.

Children in rural areas are at a similar disadvantage compared to those who live in

urban areas.

Nearly 9 in 10 children from the wealthiest 20 per cent of households in the world’s

least developed countries attend primary school – compared to only about 6 in 10

from the poorest households. The gap can be dramatic even in lower-middle-income

countries. In Nigeria, for example, 94 per cent of children in the wealthiest house-

holds attended school, compared to 34 per cent of children in the poorest households.

Regardless of wealth, girls continue to be held back from schooling. For every

100 boys enrolled in primary school in West and Central Africa, only 90 girls are

admitted. The exclusion is worse in secondary school, where only 76 girls are

enrolled for every 100 boys.

Adolescent girls are more likely to be married or in union by age 19 than their male

counterparts, and less likely than boys to have comprehensive knowledge of HIV.

In South Asia, boys are almost twice as likely as girls to have this knowledge with

which to protect themselves.

Nearly three quarters (or around 1.8 billion) of the 2.5 billion people around the

world who still have no access to improved sanitation live in rural areas. Data from

Bangladesh, India and Nepal, for example, show little progress between 1995 and

2008 in improved sanitation coverage among the poorest 40 per cent of households.

Too many children remain excluded

from the progress of the past

25 years. The cost of these inequities

is paid most immediately – and most

tragically – by children themselves.

But the long-term impact affects

generations to come, undermin-

ing the strength of their societies.

So addressing these inequities and

reducing disparities is not only the

right thing to do – honoring the spirit

of the Convention on the Rights of the

Child – it is also the strategic thing to

do, yielding practical gains.

As the global community begins to

shape – and act on – the post-2015

agenda, dismantling the financial,

political, institutional and cultural

barriers that stand between children

and their rights must be a central

priority.

THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN 2015: Executive Summary

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PART 3

Innovating for Equity

For all children to have an equal chance to make the most of their

potential, innovation must not only benefit those who can afford it

the most. It must also meet the needs and advance the rights of

those who have the least.

We call this innovating for equity, and it is already happening: in

tech studios and university laboratories; in government, business

and development organizations; and in kitchens, classrooms and

community centres around the world. Innovators are drawing on

unconventional sources of knowledge and collaboration, disrupt-

ing established processes and structures, and using available

resources creatively to produce practical solutions that deliver

higher quality or greater impact at lower cost. But how

is one to determine whether an innovation, and the process

of innovation itself, serves to advance equal opportunity for

all children, regardless of the circumstances into which they

were born?

UNICEF and partners in governments, businesses, philanthropic

organizations and the United Nations system have endorsed

principles of innovation for equity. In our experience, this kind of

innovation is:

Targeted to reach children not reached by traditional

approaches.

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Designed with and for the user to address the specific needs

of marginalized and vulnerable children and families, and

priced so they can benefit from it.

Anchored in the principles of children’s rights, including non-

discrimination, so that all children and their families have an

equal chance to enjoy high-quality goods and services.

Participatory – engaging children, young people and their

communities as agents of change.

Rooted in local social, cultural, economic, institutional and

political circumstances – and adaptable to differing contexts.

Based on sound evidence and subject to rigorous monitor-

ing, evaluation and revision to increase the benefit to the

most deprived and vulnerable children and families.

Sustainable within countries’ or communities’ financial and

environmental constraints; not reliant on subsidies or on the

degradation of natural resources.

Scalable, to bring benefits to as many as possible within each

specific context. Since circumstances vary between settings,

not everything will be appropriate everywhere.

Unafraid to fail, because failure is both a natural consequence

of testing new ideas and a critical part of creating successful

innovations.

Depending on who

gets to use it, and

how the wealth

and other benefits

it generates

are distributed,

technology can

help reduce

inequality or can

make it worse.

– Thomas Woodson, Assistant

Professor at Stony Brook University,

More is at stake than the need to provide

high-end consumers with the latest

gadgets. Innovating for equity aims to

change the lives of children in need. So

innovators must strike a different, more

delicate, balance – accepting the degree

of risk required to break through to new

solutions while safeguarding the hopes and

well-being of children. So, how to put these

principles into practice?

Innovation is about moving beyond bound-

aries and refusing to accept the status quo.

And so a principled approach to innovation

starts with, and is guided by, questions

throughout the process – from identify-

ing problems to developing and scaling up

solutions to evaluating their impact.

THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN 2015: Executive Summary

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Key questions for innovators

and facilitators of innovation

to consider include:

Assessing the context

◗

What barriers are keeping the poorest children and

families from the goods, services and opportunities

they need to realize their rights?

◗

What has been tried before? Why hasn’t it worked?

◗

Are there potential home-grown solutions available

that could be developed with support? What kind of

support do local innovators need?

◗

How can communities – and especially their most

marginalized members, like women and girls or

ethnic minorities – be engaged in developing and

implementing solutions?

Evaluating solutions

◗

Is the solution environmentally and financially sustainable?

◗

Will all users have an equal voice in providing feedback?

◗

What risks are involved in implementing the solution? Are

they acceptable?

◗

What happens if it fails? What kind of support will communi-

ties get to help them deal with the failure?

◗

How will lessons from the failure inform future efforts?

Scaling and adapting solutions

◗

How do you know if a solution is scalable?

◗

What will it take to bring the solution to scale?

◗

If a solution is not scalable, what is its value?

◗

When adapting a solution to a new context, what needs to

be changed?

Developing solutions

◗

Does the solution meet applicable quality standards?

◗

Will the poorest be able to afford it?

◗

Will it be equally accessible to children with disabili-

ties or those from other disadvantaged groups?

◗

Is the solution appropriate to the intended age group

and prevailing social and cultural norms?

◗

Do the institutions, infrastructure, legal framework,

resources and capacities needed to make the solu-

tion work exist? How can gaps be filled?

◗

Is the solution financially sustainable or will it need

more money to keep going?

Engaging children and young people

◗

How can children and young people be engaged in the pro-

cess of innovation?

◗

What measures must be taken to protect children involved in

the process of developing and implementing solutions? How

should children be compensated for their time and effort?

◗

What kinds of education or training can help foster children’s

creativity and critical thinking? How to ensure that the poor-

est and most marginalized children are not excluded from

such opportunities?

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Many voices, many

stories

In countries and communities across the globe, people are doing remarkable things to make the world better for

every child – by

pushing boundaries, challenging assumptions and sharing their creative solutions.

The 2015

State of

the World’s Children

presents many of these innovators’ experiences and insights,

in their own words. Using the

categories below, readers of the online report can explore their work.

The following pages present some of the stories included in each category in the digital report.

Engaging youth

Young people are finding new ways to participate and claim their rights.

Sparking creativity

Young people need support and quality education to foster their potential as

innovators.

Working with communities

Inclusive and sustainable solutions, by and for local people, are emerging.

Adapting solutions

Innovators around the world are closing gaps and crafting solutions tailored

to local needs.

Reaching all children

Reorienting innovation towards greater equality and the needs of the

poorest takes deliberate effort.

Engaging youth

Young people are finding new ways to participate and claim their rights.

INNOVATION MAP

The interactive ‘Innovation Map’ lets you explore

what others are doing to solve challenges

affecting children around the globe.

We want to hear from you too – tell us about

something innovative that you’re doing, or that

people you know are doing. Put those innovations

on the map – and help us discover the next big

idea that could change the world for children.

THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN 2015: ExecutiveSsummary

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Engaging youth

<http://SOWC2015.unicef.org/topics/engaging-youth>

Young people are finding new ways to

participate and claim their rights.

Around the world, children and young people are enjoying

unprecedented opportunities to connect with each other

and share experiences and information. Innovative

projects, some initiated or implemented by young people

themselves, are helping to turn these connections into

change. Young people are using the Internet and mobile

technologies to track issues they are concerned about

and speak directly to decision makers. Children living

and working on the streets are finding resources to help

themselves plan for the future.

Meanwhile, adults are beginning to realize that it’s important

to listen to children. Designers of technologies recognize

that children’s input is critical to making products that speak

to what children actually need and want – and that draw on

children’s imagination and creativity to expand the realm of

the possible. Humanitarian initiatives, though slower on the

uptake, are also starting to consult children to make complex

and intimidating bureaucratic processes respond better to

their needs. Asking children what they want and need simply

leads to better results.

Affordable Internet-enabled mobile phones are allowing more Kenyans to go online.

Stories

Reimagine the future: Innovation for

every

child

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Stories

Engaging

Youth

NATHANAEL CHRISTENSON, 19, KEVIN CHOW, 17,

and

LUKE

SCHUSTER, 18,

recount how they developed Seeing Eye Pad, a

navigation assistance app for the visually impaired. They started

out wondering how to make computer experiences more realistic

– and concluded that the results of their research had potential

to aid people with visual impairments in moving about the world.

The software uses a tablet’s camera to scan the environment and

plays sounds to alert the user to doors, stairs, drop-offs and other

common hazards. They designed the software to work on lower-

powered machines that those in need are more likely to have

access to.

real time, where bullying is happening – while partnerships with

members of government help turn awareness into action.

ANNA SKEELS,

Project Manager for Measuring Separation in

Emergencies,

hosted by Save the Children, discusses refugee

children’s participation in designing child protection programmes.

Current procedures pay little attention to children’s particular needs

and can be overly formal and intimidating to kids – creating barriers

that prevent them from sharing their concerns openly. When asked,

children have come up with simple ways to make these procedures

more child friendly – for instance, peer support for newly arrived

children or opportunities for play while waiting for interviews.

[VIDEO]

In Chile, the annual ‘fiiS’ festival of social

innovation

is about showcasing how everyone – not just

experts – can solve problems. At its core is the belief that solv-

ing pressing social ills makes sense when done hand-in-hand

with those most affected and with diverse partners focused on

concrete results. At the festival, young people see popular music

bands and participate in sessions in which people from different

walks of life imagine and begin building solutions together.

Sparking

Creativity

Working with

Communities

Adapting

Solutions

Reaching all

Children

ALISON DRUIN,

Chief Futurist and Director of the Future of

Information Alliance at the University of Maryland,

describes

her work with children as partners in research and development

of new technologies. As a 9-year-old boy involved in the research

explained, designing technologies for children without giving them

opportunities to express their unique perspectives is “like making

clothes for someone you don’t know the size of. Druin’s process

”

of ‘cooperative inquiry’ gives rise to all sorts of ideas, some out-

landish and others practical – and from these, innovation is born.

RITA PANICKER PINTO,

Founder and Director of Butterflies,

describes the Children’s Development Khazana, a cooperative

bank run by and for working children, including those living on

the street. The bank empowers clients to save their money, earn

interest, and finance their own businesses and education. To help

children raise themselves out of poverty, it also provides life skills

education, teaching them how to set priorities, manage their

money in ways that help them achieve their goals and operate

their businesses effectively and ethically.

VIRAJ PURI, 14,

explains how he created Bullyvention, a way to

leverage the power of people and technology to track and advocate

against cyberbullying. Based on algorithms that analyse social media

messages, the bullying heat map raises awareness by showing, in

Rethinking

Structures

[VIDEO]

The story of Josephine, a bright 21-year-old young

woman from Lusaka, Zambia,

is one of bravery and innova-

tion. Born in the slums of Lusaka into a family of 10 siblings,

Josephine managed to get herself into and through school,

and is now on a mission to change the world. As one of

Zambia’s 65,000-plus U-Reporters, she is part of a community

that uses rapid SMS to provide adolescents and young people

with confidential, free-of-charge counselling on sexually trans-

mitted diseases and HIV. In addition to the SMS counselling,

periodic polls gather the opinions of young people and allow

them to participate in their country’s future.

THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN 2015: Executive Summary

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Sparking creativity

<http://SOWC2015.unicef.org/topics/sparking-creativity>

Young people need support and quality

education to foster their potential as

innovators.

Children and young people are natural innovators. They

are also acutely aware and deeply concerned about the

challenges facing their communities. Nurturing their

creativity and critical thinking is key to helping them

develop their potential to address these problems. Similarly,

expanding access to quality education equips them with

concrete knowledge and skills in disciplines like science and

engineering, which are in demand in this technologically

driven world. It’s especially important that the children

whom society has kept at a disadvantage – because of

gender, disability, ethnic minority status or poverty – have

equal opportunities to learn and participate.

Around the world, innovators are trying out unconventional

approaches to education – like using simple toys to illustrate

principles of science, or setting up innovation labs to

give children a space in which to tinker with models and

machines. Such initiatives impart critical knowledge and

skills, while giving children opportunities to build their

confidence as thinkers, makers and problem solvers. These

experiences can change children’s lives – and children, in

turn, have the potential to change the world.

A boy who previously lived on the streets paints at the Umid Yeri (‘Place of

Hope’) Children’s Shelter and Rehabilitation Centre in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Stories

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every

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Stories

Engaging

Youth

SHUBHAM BANERJEE, 13,

recounts his creation of Braigo,

a Braille printer made from Lego bricks that costs $350

(compared to $2,000 average). To make a Braille printer for

the masses, do-it-yourself assembly is key. The young inventor

built seven different models before settling on one that was

able to print the six dots in a desired sequence according

to Braille grade 1 standards. “I always closed my eyes and

used my fingers to feel the bumps on the paper, he writes.

”

The building instructions and software are open source,

which will provide a low-cost solution for the visually impaired

community.

OSAMA BROSH,

young inventor,

talks about how he and

classmate Omar Turk designed a mobile phone application that

uses vibration to alert deaf people to loud sounds. Their ‘eureka’

moment was inspired by a scene Osama had seen on TV as a

young kid, in which a hearing-impaired character could not hear

a knock at the door. That tiny spark, he relates, spawned ideas

upon ideas. The essay recounts the exhilarating process of

developing the idea into a software application with the support

of their mentors and presenting it at StartUp Weekend, where

their prototype won first place.

EMILY CUMMINS,

young inventor,

describes her experience

as an inventor and advocate for young people, especially girls,

to become engineers, scientists and technologists. She writes

about her decision to open source all her designs – including a

water carrier that can transport multiple containers in a single

trip and a sustainable refrigerator powered by dirty water and

solar heat – and makes the case that providing free access to

the design plans is key to ensuring that poor people benefit from

the products she has created.

ARVIND GUPTA,

science educator and inventor at the

University of Pune,

describes how simple, everyday objects

– from bicycle tubes and broken slippers to straws and match-

boxes – can be wrought into simple machines that captivate

children, and in the process teach them fundamental principles

of science. In many countries, science education focuses

on rote learning – but Gupta’s active, concrete and creative

approach has much greater potential to capture children’s imagi-

nation and get them excited about science.

DESMOND MITCHELL,

CEO of Cornerstone Innovation

and board member of Global Minimum,

talks about how

innovation labs are enhancing education through active learning.

Offering opportunities for tinkering, making and modeling,

the innovation labs’ curriculum promotes children’s cognitive

development, creativity and critical thinking as well as building

self-confidence and empowering them to imagine, experiment

with and build solutions to the problems they see in the world

around them.

DAVID SENGEH,

President and Co-Founder of Global

Minimum,

describes the experiences that shaped his life as a

young innovator – from fleeing rebels during Sierra Leone’s civil

war, flanked by columns of child soldiers, to talking with ampu-

tees in a camp in Freetown and later incorporating the insights

he gleaned there into designs for cutting-edge prosthetics at

MIT’s Media Lab. Children and young people, he argues, have

the potential and passion to innovate and solve the problems

that plague their communities – but they need to be not only

equipped with the right tools, platforms and skills, but also

taught to question the status quo and feel empowered to do

something to change it.

Sparking

Creativity

Working with

Communities

Adapting

Solutions

Reaching all

Children

Rethinking

Structures

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Sparking creativity

BALAZS ZSOMBORI,

young inventor,

talks about developing PictoVerb,

an application for tablets and smartphones that transforms universally

recognizable symbols into audio sentences, helping people with speech

impairments communicate. Balazs was inspired to create his application

after meeting a woman who lost her voice due to disease and seeing

how not being able to speak cut her off from human connections. Down

the road, he plans to expand his invention into a family of products to help

adapt the world to meet the needs of people with disabilities.

[VIDEO]

Education is more than just exam results and grades

on paper. Nowhere is that more clear than in Jamaica, where the

prevailing teaching method is known as ‘chalk and talk’.

MARVIN

HALL,

a former mathematics teacher,

believes there’s a better

way to teach children. Since 2008, he has conducted a series of

summer camps and workshops known as Lego Yuh Mind. The

workshops involve building robots from Lego, but they encompass

much more than that, including inspiring creative thinking and prob-

lem solving, encouraging financial intelligence, developing skills

in buying and selling, profit and loss, entrepreneurial thinking and

participation in a market economy.

[VIDEO]

Think ‘innovation space’ and what comes to mind?

Perhaps an incubator in Silicon Valley, or a high-tech hacker space

in Berlin. Lusaka, Zambia probably doesn’t spring readily to mind

– but that’s just what is happening in a small house on a quiet,

tree-lined street behind one of the capital’s main shopping malls.

In 2011, four local entrepreneurs founded

BONGOHIVE

to bring

young people together to learn technology skills, share co-working

space and be part of a community dedicated to the ideals of inno-

vation, creativity and sustainability.

Existing assistive technologies are either too

expensive or difficult to obtain for normal people

without a government or non-profit sponsorship.

Technological advances should help humanity

and not become a burden due to cost.

– Shubham Banerjee

Reimagine the future: Innovation for

every

child

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Working with

communities

<http://SOWC2015.unicef.org/topics/working-with-communities>

Inclusive and sustainable solutions, by and

for local people, are emerging.

Children, families and communities are autonomous agents,

and acknowledging them as such is key to respecting their

human rights – and to creating solutions that succeed and

can be sustained. Ventures that spring from the initiative of

community members and proceed with their participation

are more likely to address their needs in ways that are

acceptable and sensitive to local social, cultural and political

factors that outsiders may well miss.

A variety of innovative projects are achieving results by

putting local participation and agency at the centre. In some

countries, social protection programmes stimulate demand

for goods and services by providing cash in exchange for

changes in behaviour, like buying more nutritious food and

visiting the doctor regularly. Rigorous evaluations have

shown that when parents are empowered to invest in their

children, the children reap lasting benefits. This lesson has

been borne out also by humanitarian initiatives that focus on

demand, directly giving parents the goods they need to help

their own children. When scientists partner with communities,

the resulting exchange of knowledge enriches both sides

and can lead to more effective solutions. And community

members’ ownership and empowerment give interventions a

greater chance of creating change that endures.

The Child Welfare Project in China uses community-based social workers

to reach poor and remote children in a cost-effective and efficient way.

THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN 2015: Executive Summary

Stories

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MOHAMED BANGURA,

young inventor,

tells of inventing a

low-cost sharpening machine for his community’s craftsmen

after noticing that the tools they used would regularly wear out.

Mohamed put himself in their shoes, imagining how he would

feel if the circuit boards he needed to pursue his passion for

building electronics were always breaking down. He developed

his machine in close consultation with the craftsmen, and seeing

them use the finished product boosted his confidence in his own

abilities to create solutions.

STEVE COLLINS,

Co-Founder and Director of Valid Nutrition,

discusses his pioneering development of the community-based

management of acute malnutrition (CMAM) – a model of care

that moved away from the traditional, expensive and low-cov-

erage model of inpatient therapeutic feeding centres run by aid

agencies, to treating people in their homes with the support of

local clinics and using ready-to-use therapeutic foods. By empow-

ering parents with the tools to care for their own children, CMAM

revolutionized the treatment of acute malnutrition.

KAREN MACOURS,

Associate Professor at the Paris School

of Economics and Researcher at the French Agricultural

Research Institute,

surveys innovative conditional cash transfer

programmes that bypass the traditional supply-side approach

focusing on service provision, to instead address the demand

side by providing families in poor and vulnerable communities

with cash in exchange for changes in nutrition- and health-related

behaviours. Such social protection initiatives empower families to

invest in their own children. And they work: rigorous, randomized

evaluations have shown that they produce sustained improve-

ments in young children’s cognitive development.

Workin

Comm

Fostering an environment that promotes the use of evidence

and transparency to provoke change is an important challenge

to which we must all rise.

– Steve Collins

OLIVIER NYIRUBUGARA,

Lecturer in Journalism and New

Media at Erasmus University Rotterdam and Senior Coach

at the Voices of Africa Media Foundation,

discusses his expe-

rience training young people in eight African countries to use

mobile phones to produce audiovisual reports about issues that

undermine the realization of children’s rights – from child labour

to violence to lack of access to quality education. The young

reporters show the videos to local administrators and decision

makers, voicing their concerns and trying to find solutions.

Voices of Africa also trains them in journalistic ethics – espe-

cially regarding any potential risks to the children featured in

their stories.

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Youth

Sparking

Creativity

The question of how to deliver solutions

to places where the need is greatest

and assure acceptance and uptake there

remains sorely underexplored, with grave

consequences for vulnerable children.

– James Radner, Karlee Silver and Nathaniel Foote

[VIDEO]

THE CHILD WELFARE PROJECT

was started

in 2010 in five rural provinces of China to reach poor and

remote children in a cost-effective and efficient way. This

video follows 8-year-old Panpan, who lives with her elderly

grandparents, and Mei Hongfang, a ‘barefoot social worker’

trained to offer assistance to families like Panpan’s. Mei

monitors the family’s use of a monthly government subsidy,

ensuring that guardians and caregivers spend it as intended.

Working with

Communities

Adapting

Solutions

Reaching all

Children

[VIDEO]

TENDEKAYI KATSIGA,

Director of Operations

at Deaftronics,

produced Solar Ear, the world’s first solar

hearing-aid battery charger. The device lasts for 2–3 years

and can be used in 80 per cent of hearing aids on the

market today. It was developed to meet the needs of

communities lacking regular access to electricity; it can

be charged via the sun, household light or a cell phone

plug. The technology has spread to Brazil and Jordan, and

the product is being sold in at least 40 African countries.

In Zimbabwe, it is benefitting children who would

otherwise be missing out on education because of their

hearing impairment.

Rethinking

Structures

JAMES RADNER,

Assistant Professor at the School of Public

Policy and Governance, University of Toronto;

KARLEE SILVER,

Vice President of Targeted Challenges for Grand Challenges

Canada;

and

NATHANIEL FOOTE,

Senior Fellow at the Harvard

University Center on the Developing Child,

write about

collaboration between scientists and communities to generate

local solutions that reduce poverty and improve children’s lives.

We need innovation to create delivery strategies that respond to

local needs by bringing to bear the knowledge and capacity of all

relevant actors, from village mothers to multinational businesses.

‘Integrated innovation’ engages social, scientific and business

innovators for better, sustainable results at scale.

When the sun is

shining, 17-year-old

Tapiwa Mtisi likes to

sit outside and read

romance novels while

she waits for her

Solar Ear to charge.

Tendekayi Katsiga

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Adapting solutions

<http://SOWC2015.unicef.org/topics//adapting-solutions>

Innovators around the world are closing gaps

and crafting solutions tailored to local needs.

As much as innovation is about breaking boundaries and

reimagining the possibilities around us, it is also about solving

problems within the constraints of the local context. Innovators

can only work with what they have – and in low-income

countries and communities, there is never quite enough.

Constrained circumstances can inspire ingenious solutions.

Where flooded roads can’t take children to school, a fleet of

solar-powered boats can bring the school to them. Where

bombs and rubble make the journey to school perilous,

text messages can help keep children safe. Where frequent

blackouts keep families dependent on generators that burn

costly fuel and emit toxic fumes, urine – free, safe and

sustainable – could provide an alternative.

The parameters differ from country to country, and from one

community to the next. Local innovators can’t help but know

what’s feasible and what’s not. A whole range of factors play

into whether a solution is likely to work within a particular

context – from social and cultural norms to features of the

environment and infrastructure, to people’s education levels

and skills. Something that works wonders in one place may

well fail in another. How effective, acceptable and sustainable

an innovation will be hinges on how well it fits into the lives

and environments of the children and communities who use it.

Architect Mohammed Rezwan developed floating schools as a way to

ensure year-round access to education in flood-prone communities.

Stories

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child

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Youth

ABIOLA AKINDELE, 16, ZAINAB BELLO, 17, ADEBOLA

DURO-AINA, 16,

and

OLUWATOYIN FALEKE, 17,

recount how

they created a urine-powered generator to provide an affordable

and safe alternative for Nigerians who do not have access to a

reliable power supply. After initial setbacks, the young inventors

presented the generator at the 2012 Maker Faire Africa, where

their invention was celebrated. Since then they have showcased

it nationally and internationally, won awards and are now working

with the Lagos State Government to develop the generator fur-

ther for large-scale production.

ISAMAR CARTAGENA, 18,

recounts her invention of Vibrasor,

a device she and her classmate Katherine Fernandez developed

to help people with hearing impairments navigate safely through

busy urban areas. Hearing impaired themselves, Isamar and

Katherine know firsthand the difficulties faced by the deaf com-

munity in such areas. Their device translates loud noises into

vibrations and lights, and it’s specially calibrated to respond to

sound frequencies of car and motorcycle horns. While a lack of

resources has kept them from moving past the prototype stage,

they are continuing to conduct research in the hopes of further

developing their product.

BISMAN DEU, 16,

talks about developing GreenWood, a build-

ing material made from unwanted rice waste, which is often

burned, causing air pollution, killing crop-friendly insects and

making the topmost layer of soil partially infertile due to loss of

nutrients. GreenWood creates affordable, waterproof particle-

boards that can be used in low-cost, environmentally sustainable

housing as well as sturdy school furniture – helping to reduce air

pollution and improving rural livelihoods by creating a market for

rice waste.

GUNTHER FINK,

Assistant Professor of International Health

Economics at Harvard University,

and

STEPHANIE SIMMONS

ZUILKOWSKI,

Assistant Professor of Comparative Education

and International Development at Florida State University,

talk about creating a new, culturally appropriate metric to evalu-

ate children’s cognitive development in Zambia. The motivation

for the project came when researchers realized that tests devel-

oped in Western countries were useless – simply because they

asked children to answer questions about things they had never

seen before, like chemistry sets or igloos, or to perform wholly

unfamiliar tasks, like analysing two-dimensional pictures. The

new assessments, using objects and tasks familiar to Zambian

children, produced more accurate results.

Sparking

Creativity

Working with

Communities

Adapting

Solutions

Reaching all

Children

Rethinking

Structures

Bisman Deu, 16,

is one of the

inventors of

GreenWood – a

substitute for

wood made from

unwanted rice

waste that can

serve as a building

material for low-

cost housing.

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Adapting solutions

NICOLA JACOBS, 17,

tells of inventing Lumo Board, a board made

of reflective material on which house numbers are printed to allow

emergency personnel working at night to locate specific homes in

informal settlements. In developing her project, Nicola interviewed

residents of informal settlements in South Africa and learned that

they often waited hours before emergency personnel showed up.

Working with affected communities, she argues, is essential to

creating a culture of innovation that can be passed on from one

generation to the next.

DEAN KARLAN,

Professor of Economics at Yale University and

President of Innovations for Poverty Action,

and

NATHANAEL

GOLDBERG,

Senior Director for Policy at Innovations for Poverty

Action,

discuss the importance of sensitivity to the local context

in programmes that aim to benefit the poor. The same programme

implemented in Ethiopia, Ghana, Honduras, India, Pakistan and

Peru had dramatically different impacts on household consumption.

Successes and failures alike show the value of experimentation com-

plemented by rigorous evaluation. New implementers have learned

much from the early adopters and are incorporating lessons from the

pilots as they scale up programmes aiming to develop livelihoods,

encourage people to save and advance children’s long-term welfare.

JACOB KORENBLUM,

Co-Founder and CEO of Souktel Mobile

Solutions,

writes about using mobile technology to create an alert

system to warn children and parents living in the Gaza strip, State of

Palestine, of danger happening near local schools. Because internet

access is highly unreliable and there are no high-speed wireless

networks, the system relies on basic text messaging – a simple and

widespread technology that allows school administrators, teachers

and parents to communicate quickly and effectively, helping keep

schoolchildren safe amidst emergency conditions.

The school boat first serves as a school bus, collecting

children from riverside stops; then it docks and class begins.

– Mohammed Rezwan

MOHAMMED REZWAN,

Founding Executive Director of Shidhulai Swanirvar

Sangstha,

writes about the floating schools that ensure year-round access to

education for children living in flood-prone regions in Bangladesh. As a 9-year-old

student says, “We study on school boats. It comes to us six days a week even if it

rains heavily and flood comes. So much fun to learn here, I learn computer and [my

little brother] learns about river, fish and birds of our village. Started with one boat in

”

2002, Shidhulai now operates a fleet of 54 floating schools, libraries, health clinics,

adult education centres and solar workshops for communities stranded by the

monsoons. Education and renewable energy supply are always free for all children.

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Youth

MANUSHI NILESH SHAH

and

MISHA PATEL, 17,

invented Think

Green, Go Blue, a device that uses cactus mucilage to purify water,

instead of the toxic alum currently in use. They detail their journey

as young inventors, highlighting the role of the teachers and men-

tors who inspired them and the long and painstaking process of

experimentation to get everything exactly right. Next steps? Further

research to refine the process – and then hopes for implementation

at scale. Whatever happens, Manushi and Misha will always treasure

the experience of developing their project: it turned them from bud-

ding science students to passionate researchers.

CATHERINE WONG,

young inventor,

built two prototypes for

wireless, mobile phone-based telemedicine devices – a Bluetooth-

enabled stethoscope and an electrocardiograph that sends real-time

digitized EKG results to a phone. She discusses the parameters of

designing technological solutions for regions of the world where the

latest gadgets, like smartphones, are usually unavailable. Innovators

must work with what people have access to – in this case, basic

feature phones.

Sparking

Creativity

Working with

Communities

Adapting

Solutions

Reaching all

Children

– Catherine Wong

[VIDEO]

In a remote part of Uganda, a simple innovation has improved

the lives of school children. Where previously girls had to spend hours

collecting firewood, now the energy comes right to them by way of

the school’s latrines. In an underground biogas digester, decomposition

of waste takes places under airless conditions, eventually producing a

combination of methane and carbon dioxide that powers the stoves in

the kitchen.

THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN 2015: Executive Summary

Rethinking

Structures

Physicians working in developing

countries must recognize that serving

the other 90 per cent – the global

majority – requires connecting our

most vulnerable patients directly to

doctors, wherever they are.

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Reaching all

children

<http://SOWC2015.unicef.org/topics/reachingallchildren>

Reorienting innovation towards greater

equality and the needs of the poorest takes

deliberate effort.

When the goal is a world in which every child can

exercise her human rights without discrimination, can

innovation really break down the barriers that exclude so

many from what they need to survive and thrive?

It can, but it won’t happen by itself. The way the world

works now, the most spectacular products of innovation

– trendy gadgets, state-of-the-art medical devices,

nanotechnologies – benefit people whose basic needs are

already covered.

Some say the benefits of innovation will eventually

trickle down, but this is not a foregone conclusion.

As innovation tends to be directed to areas of relative

advantage, so we need to work harder to bring it to those

most disadvantaged – whether by wealth, gender, race,

religion, ability or age. Reorienting innovation towards

greater equality and the needs of the poorest takes

deliberate effort.

Sisters Jhan and Jani Perales live in Macharetí, the Plurinational

State of Bolivia, an area affected by severe drought.

Stories

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Engaging

Youth

Sparking

Creativity

Working with

Communities

Adapting

Solutions

SHARON DETRICK,

Head of International Programmes

– Africa and the Middle East at Defence for Children

International,

discusses the innovative nature of the Convention

on the Rights of the Child, which transformed children’s status

from mere object of the rights of others and of charity, to full-

fledged subjects of their own. Twenty-five years on, further

work is needed, and currently the Committee on the Rights of

the Child is working to promote children’s access to justice, to

ensure that children in all countries have fair, rights-respecting

and child-friendly processes to obtain remedy when their rights

are violated.

BEN RAMALINGAM,

Chair of the Humanitarian Innovation

Fund,

calls for the development community to go beyond

incremental innovation that adapts existing business models,

to embrace disruptive innovation that transforms the relation-

ship between aid agencies and beneficiaries. He argues that the

needs, interests and agency of end users belong at the centre

of innovative solutions to problems faced by poor people, and

examines several key endeavours that are creating change by

empowering children, families and communities.

DIANE RAVITCH,

Education Historian and Research Professor

of Education at New York University,

offers a critical appraisal

of two education policy innovations in the United States –

standardized testing and charter schools – that are applying

market-based principles of consumer choice and competition to

try to improve the quality of public education. But evaluations of

student performance show that the achievement gap between

poor children and their better-off peers persists. Ravitch, who

was instrumental in launching these very initiatives, argues that

they are failing because they do not address the underlying

causes of the disparities – namely, poverty and inequality.

Innovation is sometimes presented by way of a

dichotomy: modern, science-based innovation for

affluent markets, and ingenious, cheap innovation

for poor communities.

– Judith Sutz

SMITA SRINIVAS,

Assistant Professor of Urban Planning

and Director of the Technological Change Lab at Columbia

University,

takes a close look at some high- and low-tech break-

throughs – vaccines, prosthetics and toilets – by and for people in

developing countries. Innovations developed under conditions of

scarcity, she argues, have great potential to yield inclusive solu-

tions, because they speak directly to the demands of the world’s

poor people and also fit into the contexts in which they live.

JUDITH SUTZ,

Professor of Science, Technology and

Development at Universidad de la República, Uruguay,

consid-

ers how to align research and policy so that innovation can advance

equity for children. Innovation policy, she argues, should be consid-

ered a branch of social policy – and the criteria for success should

be based not on making profits or meeting demand arising from

high-income populations, but on producing high-quality public goods

and services that meet the needs of the world’s poorest people.

Reaching all

Children

Rethinking

Structures

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Reaching all children

THOMAS WOODSON,

Assistant Professor at Stony Brook

University,

offers insight into how the diffusion of technology

can increase or decrease inequality between rich and poor,

and between various groups in society. All this depends on the

characteristics of the technology, how it is used, who gets to

use it, and how the wealth and other benefits it generates are

distributed. To make technology work for equity, scientists and

policymakers must develop pro-poor technologies that directly

address the needs of vulnerable children and fit the contexts in

which they live.

[VIDEO]

DIANA MARUSIC,

a 16-year-old girl from Moldova,

is passionate about

computer programming. She is also visually impaired, and her impairment makes it

difficult to spend extended periods of time in front of the computer. So she devel-

oped an application that allows visually impaired people to use computers simply

using voice commands. She foresees eye-related problems among children and

young people becoming more common as young people increasingly use computers

and the Internet and are not protected against possible side effects. She wants her

application to help prevent these kind of problems.

[SLIDESHOW]

GIORGI DEMETRASHVILI,

a psychologist with the First Step Centre

in Tbilisi, Georgia,

notes that children with

disabilities are often not attracted to the toys

around them, or use them in the ‘wrong’

way. So he creates toys from used house-

hold items and engages the children in the

toy-making process to make it attractive,

interesting and fun for them as well.

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Rethinking

structures

<http://SOWC2015.unicef.org/topics/rethinkingstructures>

What are the nuts and bolts of delivering

innovation to the world’s poorest children?

Innovation is about more than just new technologies –

however groundbreaking, they won’t change the lives of the

world’s poorest children, families and communities on their

own. Putting innovation to work for a fairer world involves

dealing with laws, infrastructure, institutions, cultural

values, social norms, markets, money and people – and it

often means challenging the status quo.

A range of initiatives are supporting innovation that benefits

the poorest children and families. Prominent thinkers

are devising new incentives for drug manufacturers to

develop treatments for child killers like tuberculosis, which

disproportionately affect people who can’t pay high prices.

Open source product development and copyright exceptions

are breaking down intellectual property restrictions to build

a new system that promotes collaboration and adaptation

and expands access to information and technologies.

Partnerships that combine businesses’ technical capacities,

resources and distribution networks with the development

community’s knowledge and experience are creating

new markets geared towards the needs of underserved

communities. Synergies between public and private,

global and local are helping to boost the impact of local

innovations and surmount the obstacles that bar the poorest

children from realizing their rights.

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Children play near the Kitmbile Health Post in Oromia State, Ethiopia.

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SETH BERKLEY,

CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance,

talks about how

innovative vaccine development, financing, delivery and production

technologies are helping to bring immunization to millions of underserved

children. Gavi, a public-private partnership, operates several innovative

financing vehicles to drastically lower the prices of vaccines against such

child killers as pneumonia and rotavirus. Since it was created in 2000, this

endeavour has provided enough vaccines to immunize 440 million children,

averting the deaths of approximately 6 million people.

JIM FRUCHTERMAN,

Founder and CEO of Benetech,

talks about what

technology and law can and cannot do to improve access to printed content

for children with disabilities. Ebooks make it easy to convert text into acces-

sible formats, and thus can help diminish the achievement gap between

students with and without disabilities – but copyright laws and the need to

pay royalties to publishers bar poor students and school systems from tap-

ping into the technology’s potential.

REBECCA HANLIN,

Innovation and Development Specialist at the

AfricaLics Secretariat,

surveys various partnership models that bring together

public and private sector money and know-how to facilitate research and

knowledge exchange and create effective delivery mechanisms and innovative

financing vehicles to bring vaccines to the poorest children. These endeavours

spotlight the key role of social technologies – arrangements of institutions,

organization, financing and capacities – in helping physical technologies like

vaccines protect children from deadly and disabling diseases.

WADE HOXTELL,

Head of Operations at the Global Public Policy Institute,

explores how such innovative public-private partnership models as cause-

related marketing can promote children’s welfare. This model is a win-win

for both development organizations – which can get their messages out to

a wider audience and raise money for their causes – and businesses, which

reap reputational gains from ‘doing good’ at the same time as they make a

profit from the sale of their core products or services. The sustainability of this

approach creates high potential for long-term partnerships and, most impor-

tantly, for positive and lasting outcomes for children.

Rethink

Structu

Nomadic children wait to receive polio vaccinations in the Moyen

Chari region of southern Chad, 2014. Such itinerant populations

often exist beyond the reach of health services, and are among

the highest-risk groups for vaccine-preventable disease.

MARIA ODEN,

Professor in the Practice of Bioengineering and Director

of Rice University’s Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen;

REBECCA

RICHARDS-KORTUM,

Professor of Bioengineering and Director of

Rice 360° Institute for Global Health Technologies;

and

ELIZABETH

MOLYNEUX,

Consultant Pediatrician at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital

in Malawi,

describe the Nursery of the Future, a suite of low-cost health-care

technologies designed to save newborns in resource-poor settings. Life-saving

technologies developed in high-income countries are usually unavailable or

simply don’t work in such settings – because of harsh conditions or lack of

resources, infrastructure and capacity to maintain and repair them. To save

the lives of newborns in poorer settings, technologies must be specifically

designed to work within such constraints.

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THOMAS POGGE,

President of Incentives for Global

Health and Director of the Global Justice Program at Yale

University;

NARMEEN HAIDER,

Manager for the Health

Impact Fund;

and

ZAIN RIZVI,

Research Analyst at Incentives

for Global Health,

discuss the Health Impact Fund, a proposed

pay-for-performance mechanism to realign incentives for phar-

maceutical companies to meet public health needs, including

the development of treatments for neglected diseases – like

drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis – that disproportionately

affect poor people.

FERNANDO REIMERS,

Director of the International

Education Policy Program and the Global Education

Innovation Initiative at Harvard University,

writes about new

opportunities for educational innovation. In an era of globaliza-

tion, educational innovation is ‘glocal’, rather than purely local or

global, drawing on global experience and grassroots practices.

Improvement networks and professional learning communities

help transfer innovative practices across contexts, to accelerate

educational inclusion.

ROBERT WEISS,

Business Development Analyst, and

KRISTA

DONALDSON,

CEO of D-Rev,

discuss the company’s user-

focused and market-driven business models that enable it to

develop – and deliver – innovative, low-cost, quality products

designed to improve the lives of people living on less than

US$4 per day in the Global South. These innovations are having

a real, measurable impact: since it entered the market in 2012,

D-Rev’s LED-based phototherapy device – designed to meet

the specific needs of district hospitals in poor countries – has

treated 26,630 jaundiced newborns (as of October 2014) from

India to sub-Saharan Africa who otherwise would have received

no effective treatment. The next challenge: mustering the

resources to bring such innovations to scale, to maximize their

impact and help more children stay healthy.

[VIDEO]

There are an estimated 2 million children out of

school in the Sudan.

War, drought, extreme poverty and

other catastrophes have impacted the country. To integrate

them back into school, an out-of-the-box pilot project

brings education to remote villages using low-cost tablets

preloaded with games that make learning fun.

Sparking

Creativity

Working with

Communities

Adapting

Solutions

Reaching all

Children

[VIDEO]

More than three years into the Syrian crisis,

many of the 3 million displaced children haven’t returned

to school.

But a solution lies in a low-cost technology – a

computer hard drive the size of a credit card called the

Raspberry Pi loaded with an Arabic curriculum. Children

also have the opportunity to build programmes and games

using the Pi’s built-in coding software.

Rethinking

Structures

THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN 2015: Executive Summary

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Around the world, an innovation revolution for children

is growing – often in the most unexpected places – and

increasingly led by young people themselves.

Fueled by creativity, connectivity and collaboration, new ways

of solving problems are emerging – in tech design studios and

university laboratories, in development organizations and

corporations, and in kitchens and community centres.

To mark the 25th anniversary of the Convention of the Rights

of the Child, this edition of

The State of the World’s Children

highlights the work of remarkable young innovators who are

already reimagining the future – and invites the world to join

this rising movement to advance the rights of every child.

#EVERYchild

Published by UNICEF

Division of Communication

3 United Nations Plaza

New York, NY 10017, USA

[email protected]

www.unicef.org

http://data.unicef.org

ISBN: 978-92-806-4780-8

The State of the World’s Children 2015: Reimagine the Future: Innovation

for Every Child

digital report is available at <http://sowc2015.unicef.org>

November 2014