Child Protection

For more details on Methodology click here. For more details on terminology click here.
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Last Updated 3rd February 2025.

Before going further, we need to talk about why Child Protection is a bit different to other sectors. Unlike others, we are not going to spend much time discussing pre-2018 data. This is because Child Protection (along with Gender Based Violence, Mine Action, and Housing Land and Property) is a special case. Child Protection is not a designated global cluster, like many other sectors, but is an ‘Area of Responsibility‘ under the Protection sector. Hence historically, Child Protection funding was not separated from overall Protection funding in FTS.

As the Unprotected report outlines, and we’ll just quote in entirety here as it sums it up very well: “Since 2017, with the creation of a new FTS website, child protection is a category of its own on the FTS, making CP funding easily identifiable. Prior to 2017, CP interventions were simply reported under the Protection Sector”. Thus, the data from pre-2018 isn’t particularly reliable. For example, 2017 has no funding requirement and $14m is recorded as CP funding. This compares to a $163m funding requirement and $80m received in 2018.

Thus, the more reliable data from 2018 onwards reflects the emergence of Child Protection as a sector in itself, distinct from (but obviously still a part of) the Protection sphere. Consequently, from 2018 onwards, more and more contexts are starting to separate out Child Protection with a separate funding requirement in their response plans and appeals.

Therefore, we’ll mainly be talking about the time period from 2018 and onwards on this page.

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How much funding is the Child Protection sector forecast to receive in 2025?

Funding to the Child Protection sector is forecast to be between $288m and $784m in 2025. Our central estimate is $477m. For reference, the Child Protection sector received $521m last year.

This forecast is based on our 95% probability range. In other words, we are 95% sure that funding will be between $288m and $784m. Below are the other forecast ranges for the Child Protection sector. As we become less sure about our forecast, the range narrows. So for example, we think there’s a 50% probability that funding will be between $400m and $564m in 2025.

But we need to put this into context. What does the forecast mean in terms of reaching the funding that is required for the sector (also known as the funding requirement)? The total funding requirement globally is determined by how much is needed in each context. If you hover over the donut below you’ll be able to see the chances of reaching 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% of the funding that is required.

We think that it’s almost certain that the Child Protection sector will reach 25% of their funding requirement in 2022, but that it is highly unlikely to reach 50%. For reference, at the time of writing, Child Protection received 37% of the funding required last year.

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How does the 2025 forecast compare to previous years?

Since 2018, the funding to Child Protection has increased from $80m in 2018, to $521m in 2025. The central estimate for 2025 is $477m. At the same time, the funding requirement for Child Protection has increased rapidly from $163m in 2018, to $1.2bn in 2025.

And whilst there has been more funding year-on-year, the funding gap stood at $851m in 2024, compared to just $83m in 2018.

One factor behind increasing Child Protection funding may be that more funding is being tagged as Child Protection, instead of being tagged as simply ‘Protection’. The Unprotected report noted that 28% of the estimated Child Protection funding in 2018 was found under ‘Protection’ and not ‘Child Protection’.

In this story, we’ve defined a real humanitarian recession as two consecutive years of a growing funding gap. Child Protection closed the funding gap for the last three years in a row. So what are the odds of Child Protection continuing to grow and staying away from a humanitarian recession?

We think there’s a 50-50 chance there will be real growth (closing the funding gap) versus a real recession (continuing the growing funding gap trend) in 2025.

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How does the 2025 forecast compare to other sectors?

The central estimate of $477m puts Child Protection 8th in the sector rankings. This would put Child Protection ahead of the other AoRs (Gender Based Violence and Mine Action), but unsurprisingly still some way behind Protection which is forecasted in 6th place at $1.1bn.

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