After three decades of remarkable progress, improvements in the welfare of children and other vulnerable groups in many parts of the world began to falter in the 1980s. This study draws on UNICEF work and experience of recent years to illustrate the extent of the current crisis and point to ways to alleviate the effects caused by economic adjustment.

Volume 1, published in October, developed a strategy for protecting vulnerable populations during adjustment. The strategy, "Adjustment with a Human Face", combines the promotion of economic growth, protection of the vulnerable, and macro-economic adjustment.

This volume, volume 2, examines in closer detail the experiences of the ten countries used as the basis for this strategy. The successes of governments in protecting vulnerable groups in South Korea, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Peru are appraised and contrasted with the failures in Brazil, Ghana, Jamaica, and the Philippines. Sri Lanka and Chile are also considered.