The World Bank and children : a review of activities

This paper reviews Bank interventions that supported the welfare of children in the last decade. Though the Bank has always addressed children's development, and protection through its focus of broader economic development, and social protection, it has recently intensified its efforts to directly address children's issues in the context of a broader international effort to improve the general welfare of children and, more specifically, to reduce child labor. This paper focuses on Human Development projects with an objective relating to children, or that are expected to have an indirect, but non-trivial impact on children. In the last decade (FY1990-2000), the Bank financed close to 635 Human Development projects, of which 302 projects, fully or partially supported child welfare, development and protection - and the focus of these interventions is discussed in this paper.