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Begin with children in tackling poverty, says UNICEF

Wednesday, 22 October 1997: The well-being of children must be at the centre of all efforts to end suffering and want, UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said today.

Her comments came in the wake of renewed interest in the poverty eradication debate generated by the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, for which a number of special events were organized worldwide by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Concern has been further sparked by a dramatic new report, Reality of Aid, prepared by a coalition of non-governmental organizations.

"No strategy to eradicate poverty can succeed unless it addresses the survival, protection, and full development of the world's children," Ms. Bellamy said. "Children are the hope of any society's future -- and yet they bear a disproportionate burden of poverty. The deaths of 12 million young children a year from causes that are entirely preventable are stark testament to that fact."

It is unacceptable, she said, that in the midst of a $28 trillion global economy, 1.3 billion people, half of them children, are living in absolute poverty -- and beyond comprehension that their numbers are rising even as overall aid to the world's neediest countries has plummeted to record lows.

"The world cannot continue to countenance the appalling inequities that have pushed a quarter of humanity into the very margins of existence when we clearly have the means to eliminate the worst aspects of poverty within a decade," she said said. "It is time to supplant words with action".

Under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, now ratified by every country in the world except Somalia and the United States of America, governments recognize the right of every child to an adequate standard of living as a matter of binding international law -- and the responsibility of governments, communities and families to provide for their children.

Ms. Bellamy said that faster economic growth must be achieved in ways that are beneficial to the poorest and listed seven areas, at the minimum, on which efforts to end child poverty should focus:

• All donor governments must ensure that Official Development Assistance, currently at its lowest levels ever as a percentage of Gross National Product, reaches the minimum United Nations target of 0.7 per cent of GNP. Such an increase would make available an additional $100 billion a year over the next 10 years -- more than enough to end the worst aspects of global poverty.
• The effort to minimize the impact of debt on the poorest countries must be reinvigorated. A new initiative designed to offer relief to the most highly indebted countries (HIPC) was greeted with enthusiasm last year but has so far failed to make an appreciable impact. Only two countries - Uganda and Bolivia - are on track for next year, while promises sustain all the rest.
• The integration of the poorest and most troubled nations into world trade and commerce must become a priority. If the least developed countries are to have a chance to compete, protectionist barriers and subsidies must come down, market access must be assured, and support must be given to the least developed countries to enable them to benefit from the opportunities offered by globalization.
• Governments must adopt a realistic formula for meeting social development goals, such as access to basic health and education. The delivery of basic social services is one of the most effective and cost efficient ways of combating the worst manifestations of poverty. This would be accomplished through the 20/20 Initiative, under which developing country governments would increase their spending on basic social services to 20 per cent of the national budget, supported by the allocation of 20 per cent of Official Development Assistance to those same services.
• The international community must commit itself to helping the least developed countries to build the economic, social and administrative infrastructures, without which they will be unable to attract private sector financing and investment -- key to any concerted global effort to tackle poverty. Net private capital flows to developing countries are up 50 per cent in 1996 compared with 1995 -- but nearly 80 per cent of it is currently going to only 12 countries, with less than 5 per cent for Africa.
• There must be a strengthening of micro-finance programmes to help the poor -- especially women -- gain access to capital to invest in self-employment programmes. In recent years such schemes have proved highly effective in improving the earning capacity and therefore the standard of living of some of the world's poorest communities.
• There must be more emphasis on sectoral investment programmes that promote the efficient use of available resources and the strengthening of government capacity in the social sectors. Such programmes encourage the coordination of donor and government resources in efforts to address health, education and other social planning in an approach that is broad-based and sector-wide. UNICEF encourages donors to respond favourably to governments who are interested in such programmes.

UNICEF also draws attention to the need to address the vicious cycles of drugs, corruption, crime, environmental degradation and conflict which both exacerbate and feed off poverty.

Major strides towards the eradication of poverty will be made, according to UNICEF, by reducing maternal mortality, improving nutrition, increasing access to adequate sanitation and ensuring education for girls -- all goals set at the World Summit for Children.

"Allowing the number of poor to grow is both an obstacle to economic growth and human development -- and a violation of children's rights," Ms. Bellamy said. "Children provide us with the imperative to mobilize the world around this ambitious goal. The world's children will hold us to account if we fail."

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