Programming and policies for responding to child vulnerability have largely focused on reaching as many vulnerable children as possible in as short a period of time. Services that broaden access to basic needs are essential for all children, especially those that are most at risk of ill health, poverty and abuse. However, children who are the most vulnerable are often those who fall between the cracks of even the best sectoral programmes.
A key challenge for eliminating children’s exclusion from social protection, child protection, education and health programmes, is that of identifying such children and managing their complex needs across a range of sectors, and over time. Even high-quality and child-sensitive universal services and protection schemes must therefore be complemented by child-specific management and monitoring.
Authors
