Children are not future producers and customers: a plea for the moral imperative of acting now

Mark Tomlinson and James Radner

Abstract

In 2017, The World Bank launched the flagship Human Capital Project, followed by the first Human Capital Index in 2018. The project was a global effort to accelerate investments in people to improve equity and economic growth. Although The World Bank did not invent the term human capital, they firmly inserted the term into the global health communication architecture. The Human Capital Project aims to design and implement multisectoral initiatives that build human capital across the life course.

A key argument underlying the use of the term human capital was that if governments were to be convinced of the value of investing in people, including in children and adolescents, then that case had to use the language of business and capital to appeal to ministries of finance in particular. As of early 2024, the Human Capital Project had grown to a network of 94 governments. Alongside this growth, the use of the language of economics and business has also increased when making the argument for interventions to improve the wellbeing of children (eg, return on investment, cost-effectiveness, cost of inaction, cost–benefit analysis, and children as future customers).

The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health. 2024.