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Child-sensitive social protection should focus on aspects of children's well-being, including:

• providing adequate child and maternal nutrition;
• ensuring access to quality basic services for the poorest and most marginalized;
• supporting families and caregivers in their childcare role including increasing the time available within the household;
• addressing gender inequality;
• preventing discrimination and child abuse in and outside the home;
• reducing child labour;
• increasing caregivers' access to employment or income generation;
• preparing adolescents for their own livelihoods and taking into account their role as current and future workers and parents.

A Joint statement on advancing child-sensitive social protection is being developed by a consortium of international organizations: DFID, HelpAge International, Hope & Homes for Children, Institute of Development Studies, International Labour Office, Overseas Development Institute, Save the Children UK, UNDP and UNICEF. It will be finalized shortly.

The joint statement aims to build greater consensus on the importance of child-sensitive social protection.

It lays out the particular vulnerabilities that children and families face and the ways in which social protection can affect children even when not focused on them, and outlines principles and approaches for undertaking child-sensitive social protection.

In the time to come, the hope is that the statement will support further dialogue among stakeholders on the evolving policy and programming aspects of child-sensitive social protection.