2007 Year in review, 2008 the challenges ahead – Latin America and the CaribbeanPanama, December 31, 2007 – As 2007 comes to a close, it is opportune to look back at the work achieved and to prepare for the challenges and opportunities ahead in 2008. For UNICEF the year 2007 was a milestone, it being the 18th anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, approved and ratified by all Latin American and Caribbean states, it marked a generation of young people who have grown up with their rights guaranteed, if not always provided. Still, the Convention remains the most widely ratified humanitarian instrument in history, and as such is the most efficient of tools to promote child rights: the right to survival and development, the right to a name, a nationality, to receive the care of a family and the right to play – a right that, in essence, ensures their right to a childhood. An important step forward on the right to a name, took place at a landmark meeting in Asuncion Paraguay in August 2007, when governments from across Latin America joined for the first conference of its kind ever in the region. The “First Regional Conference on the Right to an Identity” gathered Latin American governments, civil society, international organizations and representatives of indigenous and afrodescendant communities, all of whom agreed to work together to achieve free, universal and appropriate birth registration for all girls and boys in the region by 2015.
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