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UN General Assemby Postpones Next Week's Special Session on Children

UNICEF: "Work for World's Children Will Go On With New Resolve"

UNICEF NEW YORK, 13 September 2001 - Hours after the United Nations General Assembly formally postponed next week's Special Session on Children in recognition of the tragedy that struck the United States on Tuesday, UNICEF said today that the work of helping the world's neediest children would continue "with deepened resolve."

"We are all touched by the events that struck New York and the U.S. on Tuesday," UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said today from her agency's headquarters on Manhattan's East Side. "We strongly support the General Assembly in its decision to postpone the summit on children. The City of New York needs to focus its energies on more urgent matters right now."

But speaking of the cancelled summit that was expected to bring more than 70 Heads of State, hundreds of children, and thousands of other delegates to New York starting this weekend, Bellamy added: "We regret the awful circumstances that have caused this summit to be postponed, but if this tragedy makes anything clear, it is that creating and defending a world that is fit for children is hard, hard work. On days like today, it seems harder.

"But from this tragedy - as from all others in which the world's children are victims - we take renewed resolve," Bellamy said. "Today we remember that our children are our future, and we are heartened in the knowledge that by investing in them every day, by fighting for their health and well-being, for their education and protection, we are helping to build a stronger, healthier world."

The UN Special Session on Children was to have taken place from 19-21 September at the United Nations complex in New York City. The summit was to have reviewed global progress for children since 1990 and set new goals for the decade ahead. A UN report released earlier in the summer showed that many of the world's goals for children, set at the 1990 World Summit for Children, had not been fully achieved and that much work remained.

Bellamy said the "unfinished business" detailed in that report provided a clear roadmap for moving forward immediately. And she thanked the thousands of governments and non-governmental groups that had devoted themselves to planning the Special Session over the last 18 months, assuring them that their commitment would pay off. "This is a postponement, not a cancellation," she affirmed. "The General Assembly will reschedule this Special Session when the time is right. World leaders have shown they want it, and the children of the world surely deserve it."

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For further information please contact:

Liza Barrie, UNICEF Media, New York
212) 326-7593
e-mail: lbarrie@unicef.org

Alfred Ironside, UNICEF Media, New York
212) 326-7261
e-mail: aironside@unicef.org