Country: World Sources: UN Children's Fund, World Vision In a ground-breaking step toward mobilizing capital markets to invest in children’s futures, UNICEF USA and 60 Decibels, in collaboration with VisionFund and Global Partnerships, have developed a child-lens impact assessment approach designed to measure the impact that investments have on children across geographies, sectors, and strategies – including for financial service companies and impact investors. The approach builds on UNICEF’s Child-Lens Investing Framework (CLIF), which guides investors to consider child-related factors to advance positive child outcomes while minimizing harm.The four organizations, along with a cohort of impact investors and financial services companies, have collaborated to embed the child-lens impact assessment approach into the 2025 Microfinance Index (MFI Index), the world's largest financial inclusion study grounded in customer voice.Applying this approach within the MFI Index will allow the cohort to surface insights and develop impact benchmarks on child wellbeing indicators, enhancing investors’ ability to identify and compare potential child-lens investments in the financial inclusion sector. Investors can then allocate more capital toward companies and projects where evidence indicates positive outcomes for children’s wellbeing.Through this new initiative, child-lens investing, which was recognized as one of TIME’s Best Inventions in 2024, has the power to advance financial inclusion by bringing more data to dimension the generational impact that can be created by financial service providers. The results will also further prove the value of child-lens investing through case studies of implementation. Applying the child-lens impact assessment approach to the MFI Index will produce insights that show how investments affect and improve children’s lives, including how investments affect caretakers, as research shows that the health and economic realities of caretakers have impacts on their children.The 2025 Microfinance Index, managed by 60 Decibels, is a global benchmark for understanding the social impact of microfinance, grounded in direct feedback from clients. In 2024 alone, the Index gathered more than 1.4 million data points from borrowers worldwide. Through the collaboration between 60 Decibels, UNICEF USA, VisionFund, and Global Partnerships, CLIF-aligned indicators—including education, health, nutrition, housing, and child protection—are now part of the Index’s core and optional survey modules, which, together with the ability to segment analysis to focus on clients with children, will reveal cross-sectoral insights and showcase CLIF’s interoperability with a range of sector focuses and investment strategies.VisionFund, the financial inclusion arm of the global Christian relief, development, and advocacy organization World Vision, is a long-time advocate for child-focused investment strategies and is now further enhancing its practices through alignment with the CLIF. As part of this initiative, VisionFund will leverage benchmarked client voice data from the MFI Index, alongside other contextual data—such as child vulnerability to extreme weather and disasters—to inform more holistic product and service design that addresses the multidimensional needs of families."Our work at VisionFund starts and ends with children in mind," said VisionFund Global Impact Director, Josh Olson. "By embedding child-centred impact measurement and management practices in the assessment of key MFI initiatives, we go beyond traditional microlending to deepen our offering for households with children - through affordable family health insurance products, digitized savings solutions for rural and financially excluded communities, and tailored training that enhances caretakers’ ability to provide for and protect their children.”Global Partnerships (GP), a leading nonprofit impact-first fund manager dedicated to expanding opportunity for people living in poverty, embeds outcomes-focused analytics and advisory support to help social enterprise investees measure, manage, and strengthen their impact. Knowing that poverty disproportionately affects children, GP was eager to help shape and support the integration of a child-lens approach into the Index. In addition to collaborating on assessment design, GP is supporting a cohort of financial service providers in integrating the child-lens approach into their Index assessments, with a focus on how housing finance drives development outcomes for children. With both data and operating insight, the GP collaboration looks to inform business and investment decision-making.“With timely, actionable data on the nature and magnitude of outcomes enabled for clients in poverty and their families, social enterprises and investors can make client-centered decisions to enable greater impact,” said Global Partnerships VP of Impact, Meghan Flaherty. “We are proud to collaborate on the development and launch of the child-lens impact assessment approach and look forward to sharing the learnings ahead.”“A child-lens impact assessment approach will help unearth the impact of investments on children and families,” said Cristina Shapiro, President of the UNICEF USA’s Impact Fund for Children. “Investors need actionable insights to understand and improve the impact they have on children—whether that impact is intentional or not. It is a tool that can go a long way to align capital with positive outcomes for the next generation.”The Child-Lens Investing Framework serves as a guide for investors who wish to better understand and improve their impacts on children. The Framework includes a toolkit with resources that support investors in integrating child considerations at every stage of the investment cycle – from strategy formation to risk assessment and the measurement of outcomes. The Framework is for all investors – regardless of geography, sector focus, or investment strategy and comes with a taxonomy that enables the classification of investment practices as child-screened, child-inclusive, or child-centered.As impact investors increasingly seek clarity on where and how their capital catalyses meaningful outcomes, this partnership provides a blueprint for integrating children’s rights and well-being into mainstream investment practice.If interested in implementing a child-lens impact assessment or child-lens investing in your work, please contact sdong@unicefusa.org for more information.###Boilerplates:VisionFundVisionFund is the financial inclusion arm of World Vision, the global Christian relief, development, and advocacy organisation dedicated to helping children, families, and communities overcome poverty and injustice. It provides financial inclusion services through affordable loans, savings, insurance, and financial education to vulnerable, primarily rural communities in 28 countries.60 Decibels60 Decibels is the world’s leading customer insights company for social impact. With a network of more than 1,400 researchers across 80+ countries, they bring reach, speed, and repeatability to social performance measurement. 60dB has built the largest global dataset of impact benchmarks, with a particular focus on Financial Inclusion, Off-Grid Energy, and Agriculture. This data enables investors, funders, Fortune 500 companies, and NGOs to understand their impact performance relative to their peers and translate insight into action with greater speed and confidence.Global PartnershipsGlobal Partnerships (GP) is an impact-first investment fund manager dedicated to expanding opportunity for people living in poverty. Since GP’s founding in 1994 and the launch of its first fund in 2005, GP and its affiliated funds have invested in sustainable solutions that empower people to earn a living and improve their lives. GP and its affiliated funds have deployed over $835 million in impact investments to over 200 social enterprise partners, bringing meaningful impact to an estimated 37 million lives in over 30 countries (cumulative as of March 31, 2025). For more information, please visit www.globalpartnerships.org.UNICEF USA & UNICEF USA’s Impact Fund for ChildrenUNICEF USA advances the global mission of UNICEF by rallying the American public to support the world’s most vulnerable children. UNICEF USA’s Impact Fund for Children is the impact investing arm of UNICEF USA that provides innovative opportunities for donors and social impact investors seeking to help solve the biggest challenges for children around the world. Together with UNICEF, we are working toward a world that upholds the rights of all children and helps every child thrive. For more information, visit www.unicefusa.org.FOR MORE INFORMATIONApril Ann A. BulanadiCommunications Manager, VisionFundmedia@visionfund.org