Places and Spaces
Environments and children’s well-being
UNICEF Innocenti’s seventeenth Report Card examines how the world’s richest countries are faring in providing healthy environments for children. Do children have clean water to drink? Do they have good-quality air to breathe? Are their homes free of lead and mould? How many children live in overcrowded homes? How many have access to green play spaces, safe from road traffic?
Data show that a nation’s wealth does not guarantee a healthy environment. Far too many children are deprived of a healthy home, irreversibly damaging their current and future well-being. As this report looks beyond children’s immediate environments to the world at large, a more complex picture is revealed. The unsustainable consumption levels of relatively child-friendly countries threaten both children worldwide and future generations.
What kind of world will they inherit? The report shows that no country has a consistently good environmental record. All countries need to take action – locally and globally – by providing all children with safe and healthy environments, both for today and tomorrow.
