Children’s Rights & Wellbeing Online – a Business Imperative

Children’s Rights & Wellbeing Online – a Business Imperative

Welcome To ActionLab Two. Our focus topic today: How companies can navigate the challenges and opportunities in supporting children’s wellbeing in the digital world. Let’s break down our talking points.

The issue

Concerns are growing over the dangers and negative effects on children of the online world. But there are also huge opportunities for learning, socialising, growth and development, how can companies support this with products and services?

The benchmark findings

Global Child Forum’s latest benchmark contains results from 174 companies in the Technology and Telecommunications Sector.

• Only 8 of these companies report on consulting children or their representatives in their stakeholder engagement process
• Just 20% report impact on children from products or marketing as a material topic
• A shocking 0.7% of companies report on compliance with their own policies or legislation

To further highlight what the same group of companies is doing to support children online, we partnered with the World Benchmarking Alliance.

In its Digital Inclusion Benchmark, the World Benchmarking Alliance found that:

• Only 9 companies disclose commitments rooted in children’s rights principles
• 24% of companies support digital skills development for children
• But none reported on the impact of these initiatives

Please note: Out of the 200 companies covered by the Digital Inclusion Benchmark, 173 overlap with the Global Child Forum Benchmark.

Both assessments signal a clear gap between policy and action: Companies need to do more.

The call to action

By engaging with young people as as stakeholders companies can open up endless possibilities for positive social impact – as well as exciting business opportunities.

We call upon companies to act. Businesses must engage children as stakeholders – it’s time to listen up. Let’s get started!