As I reflect on what 2026 brings, I find myself questioning whether our global systems are truly capable of protecting children in an era of permanent crisis.
From the UNICEF Executive Board to high-level financing discussions, one message is increasingly difficult to ignore: the deterioration in children’s wellbeing is not sudden. It is cumulative. Political hesitation, underinvestment and policy inconsistency have compounded into structural risk.
As Catherine Russell warned, we are “at risk of losing thirty years of progress”. In 2025, we recorded the highest number of grave violations against children on record. That is not volatility. It is trajectory.
Nearly one billion children now live in countries at extremely high climate risk. More than 200 million will require humanitarian assistance this year. Aid contractions are already translating into reduced access to essential services, with projections of millions of preventable child deaths by 2030.
The deeper concern is architectural. Protracted crises are no longer exceptions, yet financing and delivery models still assume temporary shocks. Protection, education in emergencies and nutrition remain chronically underfunded, despite predictable need and compelling evidence of return on investment.
Tom Fletcher has described the Humanitarian Reset as a “unique opportunity” to reach children in the most severe crises. He is right. But a reset cannot be cosmetic. It must realign incentives, expand flexible child-focused funding, and hardwire children’s rights into debt restructuring, AI governance and macroeconomic decision-making.
When 3.4 billion people live in countries spending more on debt interest than on health or education, fiscal policy becomes child policy. When AI reshapes childhood faster than regulation evolves, governance becomes child protection. When hunger persists in a world of abundance, it reflects political choice.
At World Vision, we are committed to continuing our work where it can make the greatest difference: strengthening food and health systems in protracted crises, closing gaps in nutrition and protection, and mobilising political and financial support to ensure that every child has access to essential services, even where challenges are most complex and attention is limited.
As key global financing moments approach in the months ahead, the real challenge is ensuring that children are not treated as an afterthought but are embedded as a structural priority. The defining question for 2026 is not whether we care about children, it is whether we are prepared to redesign our systems around them.
#ChildRights #HumanitarianReset #FinancingForDevelopment #GlobalGovernance