On July 11, the revised Advancing Protection and Care for Children in Adversity:
A U.S. Government Strategy for Children to Thrive 2024-2029 was launched.
Working toward a world in which all children thrive within protective, loving families, free from deprivation, violence, and danger.
Working toward a world in which all children thrive within protective, loving families, free from deprivation, violence, and danger.
Overview
APCCA guides a whole of government approach to investing in the development, care, dignity, and safety of the world’s most-vulnerable children and their families, fostering collaboration and coordination, and maximizing results across departments and agencies.
Through the USG’s foreign assistance, over 28 million children received services in FY 2021 to promote healthy development within safe and protective families. These combined measures across USG Departments and Agencies provide a sense of the scale and scope of programming under the APCCA Strategy and demonstrate the breadth of efforts to provide services for vulnerable children and their families and, where possible, highlight the outcomes achieved by USG-funded programs.
Our Strategy builds on three evidence-based objectives:
Objective 1
BUILD STRONG BEGINNINGSBUILD STRONG BEGINNINGS
The U.S. Government will promote nurturing care for the most-vulnerable newborns and young children, starting before birth, by funding and supporting comprehensive and integrated programming in early-childhood development to provide for children’s health, nutrition, safety and security, responsive caregiving for social and emotional well-being, and opportunities for early learning.
Objective 2
PUT FAMILY FIRSTPUT FAMILY FIRST
The U.S. Government will support those most vulnerable children who are, or are at risk of, living outside of family care by promoting, funding, and supporting nur turing, loving, protective, and permanent family care.
Objective 3
PROTECT CHILDREN FROM VIOLENCEPROTECT CHILDREN FROM VIOLENCE
The U.S. Government will promote, fund, and support the protection of children from violence, exploitation, abuse, and neglect by investing in preventative and responsive programming.The U.S. Government is committed to achieving these strategic objectives by adhering to a set of guiding principles that underscore each objective and are critical to their success.
ADAPT APPROACHES
STRENGTHEN SYSTEMS
GENERATE AND USE EVIDENCE-BASED INFORMATION
CREATE SYNERGIES
PROMOTE STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS
We apply these principles when funding and supporting programs internationally to support children and adolescents in adversity.
Why It Matters:
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- Each year, an estimated 5.4 million children globally die before their fifth birthday, 2.7 million of whom die from malnutrition;
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- In low- and middle-income countries, at least 250 million children under age five risk not reaching their full physical or cognitive potential because of stunting and extreme poverty;
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- Globally, one billion children under age 18 experience physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, including bullying;
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- 152 million children and adolescents are engaged in child labor worldwide, of whom 73 million are in hazardous work;
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- An estimated 357 million children, or one in six, live in conflict zones; of the 15 countries with the highest neonatal mortality rate in the world, 11 have experienced recent humanitarian crises;
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- Children raised in residential care settings have, on average, an IQ 20 points lower than their peers who live in foster care;
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- The total number of children who are living outside of family care in residential care settings or on the streets is unknown, but estimates are in the tens of millions, and significant gaps in the data and services for children who are living outside of family care has rendered this population invisible.
