Overview
The UNICEF South Africa country office is now implementing its third country programme in which it actively advocates for children, providing strategic institutional support to the country's development priorities. Its overall goal is to support the full realisation of the rights of children. The reduction of violence against children, the extension of quality gender-balanced education to all children and the response to HIV and AIDS have constituted important elements of the country programme. Components focus on supporting efforts by the government and civil society partners to reach underserved children and families through targeted programmes, scaling up proven initiatives for orphans and vulnerable children and supporting increased access to basic social services for children and families. Programme Elements and Key Results Child Survival and Development: addresses interventions to improve maternal and child health and reduce the under-five mortality rate through improved health services especially, neonatal care and paediatric antiretroviral treatment, safe infant feeding and prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. Education and adolescent development: focuses on providing quality education through its Child Friendly Schools framework which helps schools offer a quality education in a safe environment, and encourages them to have strong partnerships with the surrounding community, to promote health and to ensure the rights of children. Child Protection: addresses the startlingly high levels of violence against children in the country and provides technical support to interventions that offer protection, care and support to child victims of violence and abuse and strengthen social safety nets to protect orphans and other vulnerable children. Social Transformation and Strategic Leveraging: focuses on advocacy for better resource allocation, expenditure and monitoring of services for children, and for policies that improve children’s lives. External Relations and Strategic Partnerships: focuses on building the UNICEF brand and on raising funds. The overall purpose of the programme is to establish a fully developed philanthropic base to support UNICEF South Africa’s programmes for children by raising funds and leveraging resources within the country. It also builds awareness of the UNICEF brand by strengthening partnerships across all sectors. Private sector fundraising efforts were launched in June 2007.
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