UNICEF and Pardee collaborate on child well-being discussion paper: Navigating the Future: Four Scenarios Assessing Child Well-Being in the Twenty-First Century

UNICEF and the Pardee Institute have released a report, Navigating the future: Four scenarios assessing child well-being in the twenty-first century. Authored by Jonathan Moyer, director of the Pardee Institute, and Deva Sahadevan, research associate at Pardee, the report explores how different global pathways could shape the lives of children over the coming decades. It finds that a future defined by robust international cooperation, technological progress and equitable resource distribution holds the greatest promise for advancing child well-being worldwide.  

These findings are useful, if not surprising. The authors arrived at this conclusion by modeling a range of future scenarios that explore how varying levels of technological advancement and global cooperation interact.. This methodology offers a proactive framework that can help policymakers promote current and future well-being while mitigating the perverse effects of economic growth. 

The authors apply a 2x2 scenario framework featuring scenarios grounded in combinations of high or low levels of technological innovation, resource availability, and international cooperation. These factors determine how future challenges such as climate change, resource distribution, and geopolitical tensions might affect children’s well-being. The scenarios are designed to evaluate long-term trends and their implications for children, with particular emphasis on regions most vulnerable to changes in development.   

The resulting scenarios include possible futures of:  

Using the Pardee Institute’s International Futures platform (IFs), the authors apply quantitative data from various sources, including economic indicators, health statistics, and environmental data, to define these scenarios and to project future well-being outcomes that are measured by economic output, extreme poverty, malnutrition, hunger, carbon emissions.

The Global Synergy scenario - the most favorable of the four - envisions a future where technological progress aligns with robust international cooperation, unlocking advancements in health, education, and environmental sustainability. In this scenario, global GDP increases by 10.7%, while per capita GDP rises by 9.8%, accompanied by a dramatic reduction in global poverty—from 8.7% to just 0.4% by 2050. It also highlights significant investments in clean energy infrastructure and lower carbon emissions, showing how unified global efforts can create a sustainable and prosperous world. However, the feasibility of such a scenario is uncertain, given the current concentration of political power and the depletion of Earth's resources.  

The other three scenarios present fewer promising paths. The Divided Prosperity scenario, reflecting current trends, shows significant GDP growth and reduced poverty, with 265 million fewer people living in extreme conditions and malnutrition halving by 2050. Yet, these gains come at the cost of escalating carbon emissions, worsened pollution, and rising global temperatures. The Fragmented World scenario forecasts slow technological and economic growth, with persistently high poverty levels and unaddressed critical issues like child malnutrition and mortality. Meanwhile, the Struggling Together scenario highlights the potential benefits of enhanced global collaboration, which lowers poverty and malnutrition rates. However, the lack of technological progress limits its ability to effectively address broader developmental challenges, like child well-being and other meeting other critical SDGs. 

The report concludes with a set of broad policy recommendations informed by the 2x2 framework. The authors emphasize the need to strengthen international institutions to address global environmental issues while advancing economic equality, investment in children’s health and education, as well as greater cooperation among governments and international communities. Read more about the scenarios, their results, and the authors’ recommendations here.