1. A global funding crisis—and a test of commitment to child protection

The international development sector is facing a profound funding crisis. Since 2023, major donors—including the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom—have signalled or implemented deep cuts to foreign assistance.

Estimates from the Development Policy Centre suggest that Official Development Assistance (ODA), could decline by between 25 and 50 per cent by 2027. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), total ODA fell by 7.1 per cent in real terms in 2024—the first decline after five years of growth. Humanitarian aid dropped by 9.6 per cent, aid to least developed countries fell by 3 per cent, and support for sub-Saharan Africa declined by 2 per cent. While pressures vary across donors, the overall trend is clear: international assistance is contracting, and the sharpest reductions are being felt in humanitarian and protection sectors. The United States, while remaining the largest donor, accounted for 30 per cent of DAC ODA in 2024, amplifying the impact of recent U.S. budget withdrawals on the global aid architecture.

These reductions are already having significant consequences for multilateral institutions such as the United Nations and, within that, for UNICEF’s ability to fulfil its core mandates—particularly in child protection.

This blog makes a strategic case for why UNICEF must not allow the current funding crisis to erode its child protection programme. On the contrary, UNICEF must seize this moment to affirm its unique comparative advantage in child protection, protect the programme’s institutional identity, and escalate its efforts toward long-term systems strengthening at the national level.

In a world of shrinking aid, this is not just the right choice—it is the only sustainable path to protecting children at scale.

2. The global squeeze on development assistance

In her 2025 article for the Devpolicy Blog, Melissa Conley Tyler reported on the global shockwaves caused by cuts from the US, UK, and other major donors. She described a development sector in flux—with some institutions scrambling for survival and others rethinking the aid paradigm altogether.

This is no longer a theoretical shift. It is actively reshaping the development landscape. As noted above, the Development Policy Centre estimates that ODA, could fall by between 25 and 50 per cent by 2027. These reductions are already being felt. The World Food Programme (WFP), which received nearly half its funding from the U.S. in 2024, is expected to cut up to 30 per cent of its staff—the most significant reduction in 25 years. UNICEF, OCHA, and UNHCR are facing budget and staffing cuts of 20 to 50 per cent, leading to the suspension of core services and the closure of entire offices.

UNAIDS, meanwhile, is preparing to reduce its staff by more than 50 per cent and scale back its country presence from 75 to 36 countries. These reductions are tied directly to U.S. funding withdrawals and are compounding an already volatile funding environment. UNICEF itself projects a decline of at least 20 per cent in total income in 2025 compared to 2024.

Against this backdrop, the UN is streamlining its operations. The UN80 Task Force is exploring mergers, mandate consolidations, and shared services across UN agencies. While the goal is greater efficiency, these proposals carry risks. Without clear safeguards, child protection could be subsumed into broader social policy portfolios, diluting its technical integrity and undermining years of work to position it as a distinct system of rights, services, and accountability. For UNICEF, this makes strategic clarity—and internal advocacy—more important than ever.

UNICEF has launched the Future Focus Global Review, anticipating reduced funding across all sources. The review sets in motion wide-ranging reforms aimed at streamlining operations across country, regional, and global levels—while seeking to preserve critical programme delivery wherever possible.

3. Humanitarian fallout: A collapsing child protection safety net

The real-time consequences of the funding crisis are already being felt across the child protection sector. Evidence from the Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action (2025) shows that in 55 countries, more than 1.1 million children have been affected. Case management, family tracing, psychosocial support, and protective supervision have been suspended. Grave violations are going unmonitored. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, children are being re-recruited by armed groups. In Bangladesh, Rohingya children—many of them survivors of sexual violence—are now at heightened risk due to the collapse of critical protection services.

These disruptions violate the Child Protection Minimum Standards. In several contexts, services were halted without ethical exit planning. Local and national NGOs have lost more than 40 per cent of their child protection funding.

This is not a temporary retrenchment. It is the systemic dismantling of the global child protection safety net—at a time when children’s needs are growing, not shrinking.

4. The dismantling of USAID and the retreat of global donors from child protection

Nowhere is the shift in global aid more visible than in the United States. As of May 2025, the U.S. government has enacted sweeping cuts to international assistance, with USAID among the hardest hit. This has led to the abrupt dismantling of child-focused initiatives, including the U.S. Government Action Plan on Children in Adversity (APCA) and the Displaced Children and Orphans Fund (DCOF). These two initiatives were among the only U.S. government aid programmes that treated child protection not merely as humanitarian aid, but as a legitimate development intervention—on par with investments in child health, education, and early childhood development.

DCOF, established in 1989 and underpinned by congressional appropriations, channelled dedicated funding to strengthen care systems, reform institutional care, and support children outside of family care. It helped pioneer family reintegration, workforce development, and alternative care programming across dozens of countries. APCA, launched in 2012 as a whole-of-government strategy, coordinated U.S. support for vulnerable children across USAID, the Department of State, and other agencies. It emphasised early childhood development, family care, and protection from violence and exploitation. In Cambodia, for example, this support helped drive a 59 per cent reduction in the number of children in residential care institutions and a 43 per cent reduction in the number of facilities by 2021—evidence of what long-term systems investment can achieve.

Their dismantling not only ends two flagship programmes—it removes one of the few government-led efforts globally that positioned child protection as a long-term development investment.

Save the Children reports that U.S. aid suspensions have disrupted services in over 40 countries, forcing five office closures, halting food and education programmes, and suspending essential child protection work. Similarly, World Vision has reported more than 110 U.S.-based staff layoffs and anticipates 3,000 global job cuts directly linked to USAID withdrawals. Notably, Save the Children and World Vision—along with UNICEF—are co-leading the Framework for Action to promote child protection systems strengthening. But this agenda is now severely under threat, as funding cuts compromise the very institutions driving its implementation.

This is not mere budget trimming. It reflects a strategic reorientation of U.S. foreign assistance—away from social development and multilateral cooperation, and toward narrower trade and security interests. While many of these changes originated under the conservative Project 2025 agenda, they have now taken effect.

For UNICEF, the loss of a donor that provided 11 per cent of its global income in 2023 is significant. But the organisation’s obligation remains unchanged: to protect children from harm. That duty must not be weakened in the face of donor retreat.

At the same time, this crisis has forced the sector to confront deeper structural questions. As Erica Harper notes in The New Humanitarian, the aid system has suffered from mandate creep, duplication, and fragmentation. The current funding crunch is forcing agencies to re-centre on their core mandates. For UNICEF, that means reaffirming child protection as a central pillar of its development identity—not allowing it to be absorbed into broader social sectors or sidelined by cross-cutting reforms.

5. A collapsing knowledge base: What the aid crisis means for evidence and coordination

The global aid retreat is not only disrupting direct child protection programming—it is also dismantling the evidence base and interagency architecture that once underpinned collective action. The INSPIRE: Seven Strategies for Ending Violence Against Children, developed by a coalition of 10 global actors including the World Health Organization (WHO), the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), Together for Girls, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), UNICEF and USAID represents one of the most cohesive, evidence-based frameworks ever created to prevent and respond to violence against children. Yet many of the institutions that supported INSPIRE are now weakened. The CDC, which led global implementation of Violence Against Children Surveys (VACS), is facing billions in budget cuts and severe staffing reductions. USAID has exited the child protection sector entirely. WHO’s future funding for violence prevention and child and adolescent health remains uncertain.

The impact extends beyond INSPIRE. For decades, U.S. government departments such as the Department of Labor, the Department of State, and the Department of Justice produced some of the world’s most respected global public goods in the child protection space. These included annual reports on child labour, human trafficking, and modern slavery, as well as technical assistance to improve national justice systems and legal frameworks. These resources have been used by advocates, governments, donors, and UN agencies to inform policy dialogue, programmatic priorities, and legislative reform. As these agencies scale back or shift priorities, the global community risks losing the very tools that helped drive progress in prevention, justice, and accountability.

INSPIRE showed what coordinated, cross-sectoral leadership could achieve: aligned investments, shared indicators, and technical consistency across sectors. Its erosion signals more than a programme setback—it signals the potential collapse of a global model that treated child protection as a public good requiring structured, sustained, and multisectoral action.

6. Reasserting child protection’s core purpose in a time of crisis

At its core, child protection is about protecting children from intentional harm. Violence against children includes any deliberate, unwanted, and non-essential act—whether threatened or actual—that results in, or is likely to result in, harm. This encompasses physical injury, psychological suffering, and death. The definition spans a wide range of acts, including physical, verbal, non-verbal, and sexual conduct, and applies across all contexts—within families, communities, institutions, and online. UNICEF’s programming reflects this comprehensive understanding across both humanitarian and development settings.

Child protection works to prevent exploitation, child marriage, trafficking, bonded labour, hazardous work, and harm resulting from armed conflict. These violations are deliberate—and entirely preventable. Effective child protection is not only about responding to immediate harm; it also disrupts the social norms and practices that enable abuse. In some communities, for example, the sexual assault of adolescent girls is normalised as an ‘entitlement’ for boys and men. These harmful beliefs perpetuate cycles of abuse and create environments where violence against children becomes both tolerated and invisible. Left unaddressed, they become institutionalised and intergenerational.

Violence also includes acts of omission—when failure to act results in harm. Education, for example, is a fundamental right and a proven pathway out of poverty. Schools are intended to be safe, supportive places for learning and growth. Yet without adequate protective measures, they can become sites of bullying, abuse, or neglect. This underscores the duty of care that education systems hold to safeguard students. That duty rests squarely within the education sector. While the child protection sector has a role to play, this is not its primary function.

Child protection is not a subset of education, health, or social protection. It is a distinct system with a unique purpose: to identify, prevent, and respond to the risks that threaten children’s physical and emotional safety. It is also a binding, rights-based obligation, grounded in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which guarantees every child the right to live free from violence, exploitation, abuse, and neglect. This is why UNICEF has invested in building standalone child protection systems in more than 150 countries.

“Yes, child protection is everybody’s business—but that does not mean everyone is an expert in child protection.”

What child protection requires is not just cross-sectoral engagement, but dedicated infrastructure, specialised expertise, and statutory responsibility. These systems cannot be improvised. They must be purpose-built. Aspects of child protection can be integrated into other sectors, but its leadership and core functions must remain distinct.

Children need a robust and accountable child protection system—one specifically designed to prevent and respond to the most serious violations of their rights. The core responsibilities of this system cannot be delegated to others. Without dedicated structures, professional standards, and targeted interventions, children will continue to face injustices that violate their rights and constrain their futures.

UNICEF’s child protection programme exists for this very reason: to uphold children’s right to protection and ensure they can lead safe, empowered lives. In a time of crisis, this mission must not only endure—it must be elevated.

7. The Future Focus review: What it means for child protection in UNICEF

UNICEF’s Future Focus Global Review has now moved from consultation to implementation. Announced in May 2025, the reform process marks the most significant organisational restructuring in more than a decade. It responds to declining income projections across all funding streams, with the aim of preserving programme impact while improving operational efficiency.

The decisions already underway include a 25 per cent reduction in core budgets for all headquarters divisions and regional offices, and a 10 to 15 per cent reduction for country offices—with adjustments made to address past funding imbalances. Global and regional teams will be relocated from high-cost duty stations such as New York and Geneva to more affordable locations. Four new Centres of Excellence will consolidate technical expertise and provide coordinated support to country and regional offices across time zones. In parallel, country office presence will be recalibrated, with some offices merged into multi-country structures and an increased reliance on shared services.

The overarching aim is to achieve cost-effectiveness and improve delivery. But these changes also carry significant risks. Without explicit prioritisation, there is a real danger that child protection could be deprioritised, technically diluted, or weakened—particularly in countries with limited capacity, chronic emergencies, or fragmented governance.

Yet the reforms also create new openings. The proposed Centres of Excellence can serve as platforms to strengthen and elevate technical leadership on child protection across regions. The recalibration of country typologies presents an opportunity to accelerate efforts to embed child protection into high-level strategy and governance frameworks, rather than isolating it as a downstream service.

As always, the determining factor will be strategic intent. If child protection is not explicitly protected and promoted within this reform process, it risks becoming a casualty of system-wide cost-saving measures. But if UNICEF seizes the moment, the same reforms could enable more effective, more visible, and more sustainable child protection outcomes—embedded within national systems, rather than existing at the margins.

8. Investing in systems: The strategic solution to the child protection funding crisis

The current funding crisis presents a critical opportunity for UNICEF to scale up and consolidate its investments in national child protection systems. Since 2010, UNICEF has advanced a coherent approach to child protection systems strengthening (CPSS), structured around seven interdependent components: legal frameworks, governance, services, standards, capacity, participation, and data.

This work has matured. UNICEF’s 2024 Child Protection Systems Strengthening Report Card benchmarks progress across 158 countries using a four-phase maturity model—ranging from foundational system-building to full integration. Countries that reach system maturity exhibit national leadership, sustained financing, multisectoral coordination, and regulated professional standards. In these settings, governments are increasingly taking on responsibility for child protection outcomes, reducing dependence on international aid.

This is where UNICEF can concentrate its efforts: helping more countries transition from fragmented responses to functioning national child protection systems. A strong system not only delivers better outcomes for children but also makes those outcomes financially and politically sustainable. Once national systems are functioning, governments can begin to finance their own protection infrastructure—lessening reliance on shrinking donor contributions.

The 2024 Bogotá Call to Action reinforced this direction, explicitly linking child protection systems to national governance, equity, and resilience. The moment is ripe for UNICEF to scale up this agenda.

At the same time, the sector must think innovatively about how systems are financed. As Erica Harper suggests in The New Humanitarian, traditional donor models must be supplemented with more agile and diversified mechanisms—such as catastrophe bonds, pooled insurance models, or regional development finance anchored in public-private partnerships. Though nascent, these instruments hold potential to increase risk-sharing, attract capital, and buffer national systems against fiscal shocks.

UNICEF can lead in this space—not only as a technical partner, but as a systems investor. Strengthening child protection systems is not just cost-effective—it is a path to financial resilience, local ownership, and long-term impact.

This is not retreat. It is strategic consolidation. It is building the house, not just fixing the leaks.

9. A call to action: Strengthen, do not shrink, the child protection programme

UNICEF’s child protection programme exists to protect children and adolescents from violence, abuse, exploitation, neglect and harmful practices such as child labour and child marriage. It is not an auxiliary function. It is not a toolkit. It is not a sub-set of health, education or social protection. It is a core pillar of the organisation’s rights-based mandate.

In this time of global upheaval, UNICEF must protect—not diminish—its child protection programme. Doing so requires political resolve, technical leadership, and institutional clarity. It also requires a clear strategic direction: one that anchors child protection within national systems and affirms UNICEF’s comparative advantage in leading this work.

A strong child protection system is not a short-term deliverable. It is a long-term protective measure. UNICEF must continue to:

Maintain child protection as a standalone sector in every country office
Prioritise systems strengthening as the central pathway to sustainability
Invest in national leadership, regulated workforces, and integrated service networks
Advocate with donors and governments that child protection is foundational to national development

As donor landscapes shift and aid structures evolve, UNICEF is well placed to make the case that child protection is not discretionary. It is essential. It must be integrated into long-term planning, not sidelined during crisis response or reform cycles. Its leadership must be distinct, its expertise respected, and its visibility sustained.

UNICEF’s child protection programme exists for one purpose: to uphold every child’s right to grow up safe, protected, and free from harm. In the face of retreat, that mission must stand firmer than ever. Now is the time to build—not weaken the systems children need to thrive.

Acknowledgements

This blog has benefited from rich discussions within the Child Protection Working Group of HDPI, Inc (humanitarian development partners initiative)—a global think tank and network committed to advancing child protection and broader humanitarian objectives. The views expressed are solely those of the author and do not reflect the position of any institution or organisation.

I utilised OpenAI’s ChatGPT to assist in organising the research and drafting portions of this blog post. Any errors or omissions are entirely my responsibility.

Seize the moment: Why UNICEF’s comparative advantage in child protection must be reinforced amid a global aid retreat