As we celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the Geneva Declaration on the Rights of the Child being adopted by the League of Nations in 1924, it is worth taking the time to reflect on not only the achievements but also the remaining – and, in some cases, growing – challenges in fulfilling the rights of all children.

Soon after Eglantyne Jebb founded the Save the Children Fund in 1919 in London (together with her sister, Dorothy Buxton), she moved to Geneva, where she lived until her death in 1928. Why would this English lady move to Geneva in 1920? Why would she leave bustling London? Because she believed in the nascent multilateral system. She believed in the League of Nations, whose headquarters had moved to Geneva in November 1920. Her intuitive belief was that children’s rights should be universal and that the League of Nations should affirm this universality (with the important caveats that at its peak the League of Nations had 58 member states, and large parts of the world were living under abject colonial rules). After drafting the Geneva Declaration on the Rights of the Child and having it endorsed by prominent members of the Union International de Secours aux Enfants, Eglantyne Jebb successfully persuaded the League of Nations to endorse the declaration, which was done on 26 September 1924 during the Fifth Assembly of the League.

One hundred years later, what would Eglantyne Jebb think of the situation of children in the world today? Has the ambition of her Declaration been fulfilled?

Clearly, important progress has been made, and progress has even been accelerating over the past two decades. Let us take the example of the right to live. Since 2000, the global figure for children who die before their fifth birthday has more than halved. In 2022, the world reached a historic milestone when child deaths dropped to just under 5 million for the first time. However, decades of progress in child survival are now at risk as major donors announce or indicate significant cuts to funding for aid. The cuts to immunisation programmes are “life-threatening”, and the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that they could result in hundreds of thousands of additional deaths. The concepts of humanity and solidarity that inspired Eglantyne Jebb to create Save the Children Fund, have been profoundly shaken, with a massive impact on children’s lives.

Eglantyne Jebb, who had been a teacher, would also be appalled that 251 million children are still out of school worldwide and that progress to reduce this number has stalled over the past decade.

We are confronted with declining aid from rich countries at a time when unfortunately, developing countries are facing increasing constraints on their ability to invest in key services for children. According to UNICEF, nearly 400 million children are living in countries in debt distress, which is squeezing out essential investment in their future. More than 40 low-income countries globally are spending twice as much on debt servicing as they are spending on health, and these include some countries with very large populations of children. In addition, debt servicing now consumes 11 times as much spending as social protection does across developing countries.

Eglantyne Jebb said that “Every war is a war against children”. The Save the Children Fund was created just after the First World War to help children in countries that had been hugely affected and impoverished by the war. The Geneva Declaration on the Rights of the Child was also an expression of the idealism that prevailed in the aftermath of the First World War, when the world wanted to ban war once and for all.

One hundred year later, the picture looks bleak and the war against children continues. In 2023, there were 473 million children – more than one in six – living in a conflict zone. This number and proportion have doubled since the mid-1990s. The number of grave violations of children’s rights in conflict reached 31,721 in 2023, the highest figure ever recorded since the monitoring of these violations started. There are currently 120 conflicts around the world, very few of which have any meaningful peace processes or possibility of peace on the horizon. Conflicts are multiplying and they are lasting longer, with a huge toll on children and no end in sight. Clearly, Eglantyne Jebb would think that her mission has been drastically unfulfilled. She would certainly be abhorred by the massive breaches of obligations under international humanitarian laws by the parties involved in these conflicts and by the immense suffering this is inflicting on an increasing number of children.

I can imagine that Eglantyne Jebb, the founder of the organisation I work for, would tell us that the only way forward is to relentlessly protect and promote children’s rights. She would certainly be proud that the Geneva Declaration on the Rights of the Child inspired the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history. She would call for the full implementation of the Convention in all countries around the world. She would call for justice and an end to impunity for the perpetrators of gross violations of children’s rights in conflict. She would call for systematic accountability for children’s rights.

Eglantyne in the Geneva of the 1920s was speaking about healthcare for children, about education, about food, and about the long-lasting impact of the First World War. But she could not have predicted that, a hundred years later, a huge and major threat would be undermining all children’s rights. I am writing about the impact of climate change. The outlook for children is increasingly worrying in a world that is now on track to see global temperatures rise by at least 2°C by 2100. Children are disproportionately impacted by climate change because of their unique physiological and developmental characteristics. One billion children are at extremely high risk of the impacts of the climate crisis. Children under 5 years old bear 88% of the global disease burden associated with climate change. The climate crisis imperils the development gains made for children in past decades and deepens the inequality they face around the world. Children themselves are mobilising and calling for action.

Eglantyne Jebb did not speak about children’s voices and children’s participation herself. Maybe this idea was too far-fetched for her time. But now, children want to participate, and they want to be heard. This is certainly our silver lining. Children should be empowered to claim their rights, which too often are violated by the greed or inaction of adults. One hundred years since the adoption of the Geneva Declaration on the Rights of the Child, the time has come to shift power to children.