Children bear much of the brunt of the human impacts of environmental shocks and climate change, not only on account of their age and stage of development, but because more children live in poverty than do other age groups. Unpredictable and extreme weather, such as droughts and floods, rising pollution levels, poor access to sanitation and other public services, combined with global economic instability, are undermining children?s healthy development and reinforcing the poverty cycle.

The final years of the twentieth century and first decade of the twenty-first century saw unparalleled global interest in the survival and development of children. This interest reflects commitments made under the terms of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to support and protect all young people below the age of 18, as well as efforts in line with the Millennium Development Goals to reduce child mortality, eradicate poverty and hunger, and attain universal primary education and gender equity.

The Young Lives survey has been designed and implemented as a panel survey of 2,000 index children with a comparative cohort of 1,000 older children in each of the study countries. As part of the Round 3 data collection in 2009, information was collected on the next sibling down in three of the study countries, in the domains of anthropometrics, cognitive development, education and time-use. This note explores the potential for extending the sibling cross-section collected in 2009 to a panel in the next survey rounds.