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Speeches

Investing in our Children's Future

Washington, D.C., 10 April 2000

Madam Chair, distinguished participants.

For someone coming from UNICEF, it is heart-warming to be part of this Children's Week at the World Bank.

To appreciate what an extraordinary development this is -- the holding of this meeting and the statements we have heard -- I invite you to flash back to 15 years ago.

UNICEF had then just come out with a publication called " Adjustment with a Human Face". It was a stinging critique, based on country case studies, of how policies espoused by the World Bank at that time and by the IMF, were often insensitive to the well-being of children, women and vulnerable groups. How achieving a certain macro-economic balance was seen so important that "soft" social programmes were thrown off balance.

What a long way we have come from that situation to the holding of this meeting, and the statement by President Wolfenson earlier today expressing his strong commitment for poverty reduction, and his passionate advocacy for human development, and well-being of children!

So often Jim Wolfenson sounds like the head of UNICEF rather than the head of the World Bank.

What we have just heard from Vice President Eduardo Doryan -- that indicators of child development are the best proxy for economic development and national development -- sounds like music to our ears.

As one of the early, friendly critics of the Bank on adjustment issues, who perhaps gave the initial arguments for protesters like the ones outside today, I would like to acknowledge on behalf of UNICEF, that while there is much room for improvement, the progress that has been made in the past 15 years is indeed quite significant and commendable.

I want to congratulate the Bank for this transformation, and pledge UNICEF's collaboration in efforts to implement the recommendations that we expect to come out of this intensive Children's Week at the Bank.

Let us hope and dream that 15 years from now the Bank will be further transformed into a veritable World Bank for Children where we will come to deposit our hopes and to cash in our expectations for our offspring.

"Investing in our children's future" -- the topic of our deliberations today and tomorrow -- is a perfect launching pad for such transformation.

As we heard from Professor Fraser Mustard and Professor Jacques van der Gaag, and the story of Headstart from Secretary Donna Shalala, there are extraordinary long term benefits of investing in early childhood care and development.

The consequences of neglect are equally far reaching -- life long deprivation and deficit for the children concerned, and great cumulative loss for families, communities and nations as a whole. In fact, all the good things we aspire for our children are greatly impacted by investment in ECCD.

What are these things that we aspire for our children?

I suppose one way to summarize it would be that we would all wish for our children to grow up to their full human potential, to live in a society where human rights are respected, democracy flourishes, and poverty is not an insurmountable barrier to human progress.

Investment in ECCD yields significant benefits in each of those areas.

We have just heard eloquent testimony about the life long impact of maternal health and nutrition, intra-uterine growth, and psycho-social stimulation in early infancy.

That is obvious enough.

But how does investment in ECCD contribute to human rights, to democracy, and to poverty reduction -- the other bigger and broader goals in life -- that we would all aspire for our children?

Let us take them one by one.

On human rights. We often tend to equate human rights with civil and political rights: the freedom of speech, freedom of religion, rule of law, etc. But let us remember that human rights also include social and economic rights. Both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and other human rights covenants recognize the right to life -- survival, health, nutrition, education and protection.

A society that honours these rights is duty-bound to start with the rights of the youngest children.

The very essence of human rights is to protect the weak and the vulnerable from the tyranny of the strong and the powerful. Protecting the rights of children -- who cannot defend themselves -- for their survival, growth and development is indeed the obligation of all adults, and of states parties who have signed or ratified relevant human rights instruments. In a very fundamental sense, then, human rights begin with the rights of children. And a society that does not invest to the maximum extent of its available resources for the survival, protection and development of children, really fails to honour its human rights obligations especially under the CRC.

How about democracy? Children don't vote and have no voice -- and therefore one might say, they have no stake in democracy. But as we have heard, how a child is raised, in what kind of physical and psycho-social environment, has a life-long impact on what kind of values and personality traits he or she will develop.

Surely, nurturing children in an atmosphere of healthy growth and development, and inculcating in them the values of sharing and taking responsibility from the earliest stage of life will contribute to creating caring societies espousing democratic values. And from the adult's point of view, democracy requires that political and civic leaders be responsive and protective of the rights of all their constituencies, and that public resources be utilised in the most effective manner to help their constituencies. Democratically-oriented leaders and electorates ought to find investing in children the most enlightened public policy to promote.

And how about poverty reduction? Poverty has many faces. They include malnutrition, childhood diseases, lack of opportunities for learning and play, even violence against women and children. All these facets of poverty undermine the optimal development of young children and diminish the potential for them to break out of the cycle of poverty.

The shortest route to breaking the cycle of poverty and its intergenerational transmission is through ECCD. Children born healthy, breastfed and stimulated in infancy, protected from childhood illnesses and nurtured in a stimulating and affectionate environment will grow up to become healthy siblings and parents, and productive citizens.

Such child development results from adequate care at home facilitated by basic services at the community level and supportive policies at the national level. We know that children survive and thrive better in communities where women have dignity, access to resources, and influence in political processes.

These are also essential elements for poverty reduction and sound early child development.

Drawing on the above, let me conclude by making five suggestions for policy-makers:

Invest early and invest wisely. There is often no second chance for child development. Children have only one chance to grow. And that opportunity should not be squandered.

Look for opportunities to contribute to ECCD in every project. Children are everybody's business, not an exclusive sectoral concern of one department or ministry.

How basic social services are funded and supported will greatly impact on ECCD. Check and ensure that all governments and donor agencies honour the 20/20 commitment -- a commitment made at several UN conferences that all developing countries will allocate 20 per cent of their national budget and donors 20 per cent of their ODA for basic social services.

Empower women. The well-being of children is inextricably linked to the well-being of women.

Let commitment for children, starting with ECCD, be the foundation for peace, democracy and human rights in families, communities, nations and the world.
There is so much that divides us in the world. Let love and care for children and the imperative to invest in early child development unite us all!

Thank you.