Key Details
The BRICS Child Futures Forum, convened by the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) with UNICEF India under India’s BRICS Presidency 2026, focused on the theme Investing in Children, Securing the Future: Human Capital for the Next BRICS Decade.
Scale: BRICS countries are home to more than one billion children, making child development central to the grouping’s future human capital.
Life-cycle investment: Cooperation should connect maternal health, nutrition and early childhood development with education, skills and the transition to productive adulthood.
Last-mile delivery: Countries need integrated, equitable and accountable systems that reach children and families facing multiple deprivations.
Beyond financing: Better outcomes require cross-sectoral governance, stronger local institutions, meaningful participation and women’s agency.
Youth and innovation: Digital systems, youth skills, innovation and partnerships can support future-ready human capital.
Knowledge exchange: BRICS countries were encouraged to share evidence, policy models and implementation experience.
From dialogue to action: Child and adolescent priorities should be integrated across relevant BRICS policy processes, supported by sustained cooperation among governments, researchers, civil society, youth and development partners.
Early Investment Is the Foundation
The Forum stressed that investment should begin before and during early childhood, covering maternal health, nutrition and early development, and continue through learning, skills and productive adulthood.
The emphasis is therefore on a life-cycle approach, rather than treating health, education, nutrition and youth development as separate policy areas.
Last-Mile Delivery Matters as Much as Finance
Participants highlighted that finance alone cannot guarantee outcomes. Children facing multiple disadvantages require delivery systems that connect services across sectors and government levels.
This places greater importance on local institutions, decentralised implementation, accountability and women's participation in designing and delivering programmes.
The policy challenge is to convert evidence and national commitments into services that actually reach children and families.
BRICS Can Use Shared Learning to Improve Outcomes
The Forum called for practical mechanisms through which BRICS countries can exchange evidence, implementation models and policy experience.
The agenda extends beyond traditional social-sector cooperation to include youth innovation, digital systems, skills, financing and partnerships, creating scope for countries to learn from different approaches to human capital development.
Policy Relevance
Adopt a life-cycle approach: Link maternal health, nutrition, early childhood, education, skills and employment transitions.
Strengthen last-mile systems: Integrate services and improve local delivery for children facing multiple disadvantages.
Invest in women and communities: Make women's agency and meaningful participation part of programme design.
Use digital and youth innovation: Apply technology and youth-led solutions to improve access and future-ready skills.
Build BRICS knowledge mechanisms: Institutionalise exchange of evidence, policy models and implementation lessons.
Move from dialogue to delivery: Connect child and adolescent priorities across BRICS policy processes and track implementation outcomes.
Relevant Question for Policy Stakeholders: Can BRICS turn its shared commitment to children into integrated, adequately financed and accountable systems that deliver better outcomes from early childhood through productive adulthood?
Follow the Full Press Release Here: BRICS Child Futures Forum Calls for Child-Centred Human Capital Agenda and Stronger Development Cooperation