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Press Centre

Media Advisory

UNICEF says clean water is key to building a world truly fit for children

On the heels of a visit to drought stricken countries in Southern Africa - UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy has issued a bold challenge to world leaders attending the Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. Noting that access to clean water can save the lives of millions of children, Ms. Bellamy called on leaders to ensure that every school, in every corner of the world, be equipped with clean water and separate sanitary facilities for girls and boys by the end of the decade.

Ms. Bellamy, will be hosting a press conference focusing on why investing in children is a key to sustainable development and how investing in children is among the most farsighted decisions world leaders can make to assure sustainable development.

Who: UNICEF Executive Director, Carol Bellamy
Visumzi Adonis, 10, from Klerksdorp, a mining town in South Africa.
Justin Geyer, 10, from the Eastern Cape of South Africa.
Hailey Turner, 10, from Merseyside in the United Kingdom.

Where: Main Briefing Room, Sandton Convention Centre

When: Sunday, September 1 at 13.00

Background: The situation for children globally continues to remain a challenge:

• 2 million children die every year lacking access to safe water and proper sanitation
• More than 11 million children die each year from preventable diseases
• Of the nearly 120 million children not in school or formal education, the majority are girls; of the world's nearly 875 million illiterate adults, two thirds are women.
• A child born today has a 4 out of 10 chance of living in extreme poverty on less than $1 a day.
• An estimated 11.8 million young people aged 15-24 are living with HIV/AIDS - most of them girls.

As world leaders and thousands of delegates gather to discuss key issues at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, a humanitarian crisis is unfolding in six countries neighbouring South Africa. The lives of more than six million children are at immediate risk in Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique due to a crippling combination of drought, hunger, illness and HIV/AIDS.

While the challenges in building a world fit for children are daunting, they are also doable. In the belief that, a measure of how well the planet is doing depends on how well children are doing, Ms. Bellamy will be accompanied by three young people, they are the children of Rio. Ten years after the Rio Earth Summit they are best placed to explain what sustainable development means to young people in the developing and developed world and what their hopes and dreams are as they attend the World Summit in Johannesburg.

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For further information and interviews, please contact:

Wivina Belmonte, UNICEF Spokesperson,
wbelmonte@unicef.org,
Mobile Johannesburg: +27-82-858 1535
Mobile Geneva: +41 79 502 0261

Madeline Eisner, UNICEF Eastern and Southern Africa, meisner@unicef.org,
Mobile Johannesburg: +27-82-858-1536
Mobile Nairobi: +25 472 520 595

Karuna Nundy, UNICEF Media New York, knundy@unicef.org,
tel: (212) 303 7941

For broadcasters:

B-roll on the drought in Malawi is available.