UNICEF Executive Director visits China (23-26 Feb 2005)
Ms. Carol Bellamy Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund since 1995, Carol Bellamy is a respected voice in the international community. Now completing her tenth year at the helm of UNICEF, Ms. Bellamy has focused the world's leading children's organization on five major priorities: immunizing every child; getting all girls and boys into school, and getting all schools to offer quality basic education; reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS and its impact on young people; fighting for the protection of children from violence and exploitation; and introducing early childhood programs in every country. Under Ms. Bellamy's leadership UNICEF has become a champion of global investment in children, arguing that efforts to reduce poverty and build a more secure world can only be successful if they ensure that children have an opportunity to grow to adulthood in health, peace and dignity. She has challenged leaders from all walks of life to recognize their moral, social, and economic responsibility to invest in children - and to shift national resources accordingly. She encouraged the General Assembly to allow children to take part in the UN Special Session on Children in May 2002, and hundreds did, meeting directly with Heads of State to discuss the issues affecting their lives. The ground-breaking summit adopted new global goals for children and provided world leaders with ideas and inspiration for achieving them. (A complete overview is available at www.unicef.org/specialsession.) Ms. Bellamy has visited more than 100 countries, advocating for children and women with heads of state, cultural icons, corporate leaders, rebel commanders, and many others. Trained in corporate law and finance, and deeply committed to global peace and development, Ms. Bellamy has brought a compassionate yet pragmatic ethic to improving the lives of children. Her first two years at UNICEF were devoted to streamlining operations, cutting costs, and giving UNICEF's 160 country offices more flexibility to respond to local needs. She also focused UNICEF on helping countries improve their data gathering so that global goals set for children in 1990 could be monitored effectively. The results of that successful effort can be found in UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's 2001 report, "We The Children," perhaps the most comprehensive picture of the global child ever assembled.
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