Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) form an international development agenda agreed by more than 190 United Nations member states. The seventeen goals came into force on 1 January 2016 and will shape global efforts to end all forms of poverty, fight inequalities and tackle climate change by 2030.

War Child contributes towards the SDGs through the continuous design and development of our international programmes. The specific SDGs that are of particular importance to us as an organisation are:

• • Goal 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere

  • Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages  

  • Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning 

  • Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

  • Goal 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all 

  • Goal 16: Promote just, peaceful and inclusive societies.   

A few key examples of our efforts to engage with the SDG agenda include:

• Our education programming supports children to access - and complete - quality education pathways. Our transformative education programme Can’t Wait to Learn was built according to these principles.

• Our child protection efforts serve to support and strengthen public structures designed to protect children from harm. 2019 saw a Case Management Working Group established and a number of case-by-case approaches adopted across the board. This approach aims to empower local actors to provide individualised support - helping every child sustain a healthy and independent life long after we leave.

• Our psychosocial support interventions contribute to the improved wellbeing of children, youth and their caregivers. We believe that a better future for conflict-affected children can only begin with good mental health. And we actively seek cooperation with international actors to bring this about.

• Our efforts to increase access to livelihoods opportunities for make a small but significant contribution towards combating poverty.

We will continue to ensure that our work contributes to the larger goals concerning children as outlined in the SDGs. This will be made manifest through our programme interventions and our engagement with, and participation in, international networks established to uphold child rights at the international level.

In 2017 we began to collect data on how we contribute to the SDG goals of particular relevance to our organisation above. In future we intend to systematically collect data on this contribution, to fulfil our obligations related to our membership of ECOSOC (United Nations Economic and Social Council).