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World Fit for Children +5

Keeping our promises to children and adolescents
11 – 12 December 2007 • New York, USA

Five years ago, from 8 to 10 May 2002, the world came together for an unprecedented meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, dedicated to the children and adolescents of the world.

The landmark UN Special Session on Children brought together some 7,000 people including government leaders and Heads of State, Nobel Peace Prize laureates, NGOs, children's advocates and young people themselves to the United Nations to find solutions and affirm commitments to change the way the world views and treats children.

The Special Session culminated in an international agreement on protecting and promoting children's rights, called A World Fit for Children. World leaders unanimously embraced the new agenda for - and with - the world's children, including a set of time-bound goals to be met by 2012. These goals fall into the following areas:

promoting healthy lives;
providing quality education;
protecting against abuse, exploitation and violence; and,
combating HIV and AIDS.

All nations agreed to undertake specific follow-up measures to ensure that the goals of A World Fit for Children become a reality in their own countries and around the world. A promise was made for leaders to meet five years later, the mid-decade point for the Agreement's Plan of Action to examine their progress (or lack of it), and the factors that have influenced it.

Five years on, from 11 to 12 December 2007, world leaders are once again poised to take centre stage at the upcoming World Fit for Children Plus 5 to assess how far they have come in keeping their word to children, as well as to identify the gaps that remain so that they are able to renew their commitments, and meet their promise to deliver “A World Fit for Children” by 2012.

Note
The 2002 United Nations Special Session on Children was held to review progress made since the landmark World Summit for Children held in New York in 1990. The World Summit for Children was the first of the major development summits of the 1990s.

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UN and National reports

World Fit for Children

World Fit for Children Plus 5