The future is now. The carbon we pour into our atmosphere today will shape the climate of the future. The technologies we develop today – and the policies we develop to govern them – will help shape how we learn work and communicate. They will affect the well-being of our children. The demographic trends of today will help shape the population patterns of societies tomorrow. So the future is now – we are laying its foundations today. It is important that we ask ourselves: What will be in that future? What will the world be like for children in 2050? And what can we do today to ensure the best possible future for every child? These are the questions at the heart of this year’s The State of the World’s Children report. We cannot know for certain what the future holds. But we can examine the forces and trends shaping our world today and reflect on how they might shape the future. No list of these elements can be complete; after all our world is complex and so are the forces and trends shaping it. For example in the years since the pandemic a collision of political social and economic trends has fuelled a global ‘polycrisis’ made up of intensifying challenges to democracy fragmentation in the multilateral system and a debt crisis which is “unsustainable and a recipe for social unrest” according to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. Important commitments on many of these issues were made at the United Nations Summit of the Future in September 2024. The Pact for the Future adopted at the Summit states that the success of future generations is contingent on “eliminating the intergenerational transmission of poverty and hunger inequality and injustice and acknowledging the special challenges faced by the most vulnerable countries.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised huge concerns for the mental health of an entire generation of children. But the pandemic may represent only the tip of a mental health iceberg – an iceberg we have ignored for far too long. For the first time The State of the World’s Children 2021 examines the mental health of children and adolescents. Against a backdrop of rising awareness of mental health issues there is now a unique opportunity to promote good mental health for every child protect vulnerable children and care for children facing the greatest challenges. Making that happen will require urgent investment in child and adolescent mental health across sectors – not just in health – to support proven interventions. It will also need societies to break the silence surrounding mental health by addressing stigma promoting understanding and taking seriously the experiences of children and young people.

As the debate about whether the internet is safe for children rages The State of the World’s Children 2017: Children in a Digital World discusses how digital access can be a game changer for children or yet another dividing line. The report represents the first comprehensive look from UNICEF at the different ways digital technology is affecting children identifying dangers as well as opportunities. It makes a clear call to governments the digital technology sector and telecom industries to level the digital playing field for children by creating policies practices and products that can help children harness digital opportunities and protect them from harm.

The State of the World’s Children 2011: Adolescence – An Age of Opportunity examines the global state of adolescents; outlines the challenges they face in health education protection and participation; and explores the risks and vulnerabilities of this pivotal stage. The report highlights the singular opportunities that adolescence offers both for adolescents themselves and for the societies they live in. The accumulated evidence demonstrates that investing in adolescents' second decade is our best hope of breaking the intergenerational cycle of poverty and inequity and of laying the foundation for a more peaceful tolerant and equitable world.

The State of the World’s Children 2009 examines the current state of maternal and neonatal health explores the fundamentals of a supportive environment for mothers and newborns and outlines ways to strengthen efforts in support of primary health care.

The 2005 edition of UNICEF’s State of the World’s Children focuses on how poverty conflict and HIV/AIDS threaten the idea of childhood as a period of time for children to grow and develop to their full potential. In several regions and countries some of the gains made since the adoption of the Convention on the rights of the child in 1989 are in danger of reversal. The rights of over 1 billion children are violated by being severely underserved of one or more of the basic services required to survive grow and develop.

Each year UNICEF’s flagship publication The State of the World's Children closely examines a key issue affecting children. The report includes supporting data and statistics and is available in English French and Spanish language versions.