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Aid decline hurting children, UNICEF warns

Wednesday, 8 October 1997: UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy told an international conference on development aid in Dublin today that the continuing sharp decline in aid to developing countries, especially through multilateral channels, is having a devastating effect on the well-being of the world's children.

"There has never been a time when development aid has been more needed -- or the evidence of its past success more compelling -- especially multilateral aid implemented by the United Nations and its agencies," she said in a keynote address to the National Forum on Development Aid, an annual meeting sponsored by the Government of Ireland.

Ms. Bellamy said the severity of the ongoing aid crisis has been reflected in the sharp drop in overall aid allocated to UNICEF and other UN development agencies -- which has fallen, in real terms, by one-quarter since 1990 -- and in the number of commitments to child rights made at the World Summit for Children that seem unlikely to be met, as promised, by the year 2000.

Despite a $25 trillion global economy, 1.3 billion people -- a quarter of the human race and 650 million of them children -- are living in conditions of "almost unimaginable suffering and want," she told the forum.

"We live in world whose redefinition of the famous phrase, 'the best of times and the worst of times', would have made Charles Dickens gasp," she said. "Never in history have we seen such numbers. And never in history have we seen overall aid to the world's neediest countries fall to such shameful levels as they have in the last year".

"With aid levels plummeting as the number of people trapped in absolute poverty continues to rise, it is clear that the mission of UNICEF -- and that of the whole UN System -- is more urgent than ever," she said.

Multilateral aid is the solution, Ms. Bellamy said, because "multilateralism has always sought to address basic human needs", and is particularly focused on poverty eradication -- the result of mandates set by governments during the series of UN conferences on development in the 1990s that began with the World Summit for Children.

"So when countries like Ireland give strong support to Official Development Assistance, to multilateralism, and collaborative support for bilateralism," she said, "they are pursuing the best possible kinds of policies. By supporting multilateralism, they are supporting an agenda that addresses the needs of the most vulnerable people -- and for that we applaud them".

While bilateral aid is tremendously valuable, she told the forum, multilateral aid is more effective because it is rendered in coordination with recipient governments, under priorities established in conjunction with the UN and its agencies and bilateral donors.

While private investment and financing is essential, she said, only multilateral aid is likely to be earmarked for building the social and economic infrastructure that developing countries must have if they are to attract private funds in the first place -- and then to put them to the most effective possible use.

The world has "seen more gains against poverty in the last 50 years than the last 500, and more progress for children in the seven years since the Summit than in any other period," Ms. Bellamy said. But for all that, she said, "I am distressed to report that many of the solemn promises that governments made at the World Summit for Children are going unfulfilled -- in basic education, under-five mortality, child malnutrition, maternal mortality, and sanitation, to mention just a few of the most critical areas."

"Overall mortality among children under five has been reduced," Ms. Bellamy said, "but every year, 12 million young children still die of causes that are entirely preventable -- the vast majority of them in countries that are unlikely to meet the Summit goal of reducing these deaths by one-third by the year 2000."

Others scheduled to speak at the National Forum for Development Aid included Peter Sutherland, Chairman of the Washington, D.C.-based Overseas Development Council and former head of the World Trade Organization; Dr. K. Kalumba, Minister of Health of the Government of Zambia; and J. Hurley, Secretary (Public Service Management and Development), Department of Finance, Dublin, and member of the Executive Board of the World Health Organization.

The forum was organized under the auspices of the Office of the Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Government of Ireland.

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