Investment in Social Security: a Possible UN Model for Child Benefit?

Abstract

We live in a world where children are accorded priority emotionally and politically. Five of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of the UN are directed at children: one is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, another to drastically reduce under-five mortality, a third to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, and the fourth and fifth to ensure full and gender-equal schooling (UN, 2000 and see the Appendix Tables A7.1 and A7.2). Yet international leaders have conceded that declared progress is too slow to meet the goals by 2015.