In a world whose post-colonial complexion has been radically transformed, the fight against world poverty can no longer be viewed uniformly. Global analyses of social and economic phenomena appear simplistic and often out of date. Increasingly refined methods of data collection, as well as careful situation analysis, programme planning and evaluation, all offer one clear message -- that there is no such thing as a development formula.

Effective responses to problems of poverty have to derive from regional, national and local realities. The days of universal prescriptions are over. The keynotes for the future will be based on recognition of diversity -- on adapting strategies to local circumstances and devolving decision-making so as to empower individuals and communities. This in turn will have a profound effect on future forms of international cooperation.

Photo: The challenge of helping Africa protect its children remains, as many countries face natural emergencies such as drought, complicated by economic and political crises. ©

In many countries, the potential of health technology to improve the lives of children will largely have been realized before the end of the century. Polio has already been eliminated from the Americas and can be eliminated elsewhere. Guinea worm disease and iodine deficiency disorders are dwindling. The greater use of oral rehydration salts (ORS) means that diarrhoeal diseases such as cholera no longer represent the threat they once did; the greater availability of antibiotics means that respiratory infections are on the run. Other threats -- malaria and AIDS -- still remain, and the search for preventives and cures goes on.

Figure 11: The percentage of the developing world's children under one who are protected against measles increased dramatically during the 1980s, and the coverage level achieved by 1990 is being maintained. Source: WHO and UNICEF, September 1995.

But by the year 2000, it is conceivable that -- in so far as it is technologically practicable -- the promise of 'Health for All' will have been delivered. If that happens (though it remains a Herculean task), it will owe much to WHO and UNICEF , and the mobilizing power of the children's cause.

But other parts of the anti-poverty quest are more complex -- and less susceptible to technical intervention. The eradication of such symptoms of poverty as illiteracy, environmental squalor, food insecurity and the exploitation of children in the workplace are challenges of a different order. That effort will benefit from the same kind of energy and commitment as was applied to the child health agenda. In that context, UNICEF has been systematically addressing each of those challenges, but they cannot just be mechanistically 'fixed'. They will demand significant changes in social attitudes and behaviours.

To some extent, the same is true even in the health area. All mass public health campaigns, however smart their technology, depend to a greater or lesser degree on the cooperative behaviour of human beings. And even the most effective health education and information campaigns tend to reach not more than a certain proportion of their target populations. That proportion may be very high: 80 per cent, 90 per cent, even 95 per cent for some vaccination campaigns.

In the case of some infectious agents, this may be enough to reduce their presence in a population to the point where the disease spontaneously dies out. In other cases, it will not.

The final 10 per cent of children or households still unreached by measles vaccine, or ORS packets, or sanitary latrines, or basic nutrition, may be as difficult to reach as the first 90 per cent -- and also take as long and cost as much.

This final part of any campaign is usually a hard and grinding slog, with little of the glamour of the spectacular initial attack. 'Health for All' or 'Education for All' cannot be allowed to stop short at health or education for the majority. But it does demand a different approach -- replacing the universalist philosophy with one that specifically identifies and targets the unreached.

This is where the twin movements on behalf of children -- one based on 'rights', the other on 'needs' -- coalesce. The rights approach focuses on those who are disadvantaged by denial of specific legally constituted rights. But reaching children with 'basic needs' will -- under the terms of the Convention on the Rights of the Child -- target a virtually identical group.

It is no coincidence that those children today categorized as being most vulnerable to society's depredations are the children in greatest need of, and with least access to, services of health, education and social welfare.

Those who are disadvantaged by unmet rights and those who are disadvantaged by unmet needs are ultimately the same children. Within the next few years, these two strands of disadvantage seem destined to mesh. And the implication is that, wherever the development quest goes, the world will still be looking in the direction of children and their future.

Over the past decade, children's emergence as a topic of public and political concern has been truly striking. In the past, the idea of statesmen sitting at a conference table to discuss the well-being of children would have been greeted with amazement if not derision. Compared with the waging of wars, the strength of the dollar, the price of oil, or the signing of NAFTAs or Maastrichts, the subject of children was regarded as trivial.

Indeed, times have changed. Most ministers and leaders around the world take the subject of children seriously. Today, the public policy agenda and the media in developing and industrialized countries alike are crowded with children's issues.

The 1990 World Summit for Children and the passage of the Convention on the Rights of the Child were symbols of that new-found prominence, and both have served to consolidate the presence of children and young people in political and social debate.

Figure 12: School enrolment of 6- to 11-year-olds improved greatly from 1950 to 1995 in all regions. Some gains were lost in the late 1980s and early 1990s in sub-Saharan Africa. However, the region's enrolment rate has still doubled over the last 45 years.

Figure 13: The gap between male and female primary school enrolment rates has narrowed between 1960 and 1995. In South Asia, the gap was nearly 30 points in 1960, dropping to 19 points in 1995. There and in the Arab States, however, the percentage point difference is still more than 10.

Source for both figures: UNESCO, Trends and projections of enrolment by level of education, by age and by sex, 1960-2025 (as assessed in 1993), report BPE-94/WS.1, Paris, 1993.

The attention today accorded to children is not just because they are society's 'most vulnerable citizens' or humanity's 'most precious resource'. Nor is it just because of their size as a demographic subgroup. This attention is being accorded to children in their own right. Partly this is a reflection of long-term changes in societies all over the world.

Decades of modernization and urbanization have changed many attitudes. As a result of this century's vast improvements in child survival and development, parents have greater hopes for their children, and they expect more for them. And society is investing much more in their education and training.

This is no accident. As we come to the end of the decade, the education of children, especially girls, has become one of the centre-pieces of international development. The principle that education brings empowerment, and with it the opportunity to transform life, has been affirmed, strongly, by the global conferences at Cairo, Copenhagen and Beijing. Seldom has the international community been so united as it is on the priority for universal primary education.

That is precisely what makes the future for children a realm of optimism rather than a crucible of despair. For the complex of reasons spanning 50 years, as set out in this report, it is now possible -- in spite of the wars and the poverty -- to believe that, ultimately, the world will not abandon, marginalize or depreciate children.

It has been a long struggle to have the lives of children taken seriously; it has consumed half a century to put children at the centre of the international development and human rights agenda.

But they are there, and nothing will now dislodge them. It is therefore possible to say, even amid the horrors of conflict and deprivation, that the 21st century will belong to children. It then remains to shape the policies and the programmes, the principles and the resources to give meaning to what has been achieved.