Policies and instruments to combat child poverty and social exclusion in metropolitan areas

Almost 16.3% of children in Italy live below the poverty line and this percentage is on the rise, according to a report produced for UNICEF by the Centro di Ricerche Innocenti. The children at the greatest risk of poverty in Italy are immigrants, the children of ethnic minorities and children from one-parent families, as revealed by the "Second Italian Report on Children's Rights" drawn up by a network of 45 Italian NGOs.

Child poverty is rife in Lombardy too and, especially, in Milan, which also has one of the highest juvenile crime rates in Italy. The problem of child poverty and social exclusion is common to other major European cities too, even to some of the richest.
In this context, Milano Metropoli Development Agency has joined a European project that will make a comparative study of several large European metropolitan areas, such as London, Amsterdam, Helsinki and Budapest, in order to identify the best public and private social policies and instruments for protecting minors and families in need and for combating child poverty.

This project - known as the European Partnership Against Child Poverty - will investigate four specific areas:

• how to improve the living conditions of children in need and break the vicious circles of social exclusion;
• how to facilitate parents' access to training and to the job market;
• how to orient housing policies in favour of children and young people in need;
• the impact on children of parents affected by physical or mental health problems and alcohol or drug abuse.

Partners

Milano Metropoli Development Agency is a partner in this project, which is led by the Greater London Enterprise (with 33 borough councils) and includes the London Development Agency, the city councils of Amsterdam and Helsinki and the Regional Social Welfare Resource Centre of Budapest.

Four Swedish town councils (Sollentuna, Solna, Vasteras and Uppsala) and the city council of Copenhagen in Denmark, also participate in the work of the project.

For an exchange of experiences and best practices, Milano Metropoli Development Agency plans to involve a broad network of public and private social players operating in the Milan metropolitan area in this project, including the Province of Milan and the Milan City Council.

The project, which is scheduled to last from December 2007 to December 2009, is co-funded by the European Commission DG Employment and Social Affairs.

 Download the Policy bulletin / October 2008 191.81 Kb

Visit the web site of the project                

Download the final pubblication:
Improving life chances for children in poverty - Lessons from across Europe