Fifty years for children

From a tiny operation supplying children with dried milk in the aftermath of World War II, UNICEF has become the leading international advocate for the survival, protection and development of children, providing some US$800 million in assistance to projects and relief efforts around the world.

The report revisits the origins of the agency and explores the forces that shaped its evolution. It explains how the organization's growth and change have been intertwined with the rise of children's issues on the international agenda.

UNICEF was created by the UN General Assembly on 11 December 1946 with the purpose of helping children in countries devastated by World War II. No one imagined that its life would be other than temporary. In fact, UNICEF's creation represented an important detente in early cold war politics. In a climate marked by escalating East-West tensions, the ex-Allies had initially resisted funding a UN effort that provided relief to citizens of Eastern as well as Western Europe. Eventually, their concern for children rose above politics to help launch an organization that has been placing children's needs first ever since.

Today, the principle of extending protection to all children in war or disaster -- whether in countries of the East, West, North or South -- is a universal tenet of humanitarian relief. Moreover, today's programmes help children in times of peace as well as war and emergencies. UNICEF, for example, has increasingly turned its attention to 'silent emergencies' such as poverty and preventable disease. And the defence of children against cruelty, injustice and exploitation -- an international campaign championed by UNICEF -- continues to break new ground in human rights.

Health and survival gains over the decades

UNICEF and its many partners in development have responded to children's needs in different ways over the decades. In the 1950s, they pooled their efforts to combat diseases, especially those associated with poverty: tuberculosis, yaws (a disabling skin disease), trachoma (an eye infection), malaria and leprosy.

In the post-colonial era beginning in the 1960s, UNICEF took up the challenge presented by poverty and underdevelopment. The organization began addressing such issues as distribution of wealth and investment in human resources, particularly children. In the 1970s, focus on national economic goals shifted to a grass-roots approach, as UNICEF searched for ways to empower people and communities to help themselves and sustain development efforts.

In the 1980s, dubbed 'the lost decade' for children, UNICEF sought to shield society's young victims from some of the devastating effects of debt-burdened economies and structural adjustment programmes. It was during this time, when hopes for the world's children reached a low point, that then Executive Director James P. Grant launched a 'child survival revolution', attracting many allies among governments, political leaders and NGOs. Initiatives begun under the child survival banner, which later included child development, have succeeded in saving many lives, mostly by low-cost public health technology such as immunization. Such progress means that approximately 2.5 million fewer children will die in 1996 than in 1990. This campaign brought the well-being of children to new heights of international attention and reinforced the principle that the needs of children take precedence over economic or political ends.

The high-water mark of the child survival and development revolution came in 1990, at the World Summit for Children. Held in New York under UN auspices, the meeting was the largest ever of its kind. At the Summit, 71 Heads of State and Government committed themselves to achieve measurable goals for children's mental and physical well-being by the year 2000. These goals, outlined in the 1990 World Summit Declaration and Plan of Action, set the stage for two decades of progress in health and education, nutrition, water and sanitation, protection during emergencies and child rights. As a result, most governments in the world today are in the process of drafting and implementing national programmes of action applying sweeping benefits to children.

Child rights: A new priority

Gaining momentum alongside the campaign highlighting child survival during the 1980s was another initiative aimed at ensuring child protection. Coinciding in 1979 with the International Year of the Child, this initiative began drawing attention to the cruelties and exploitation endured by children in many societies undergoing a rapid transition from traditional to modern patterns of life.

The much publicized injustices -- including exploitative child labour, child trafficking and sexual exploitation -- underscored the need for a strong body of international law protecting children. Taking their cue from the principles championed in the 1959 Declaration of the Rights of the Child, the world community began to chart a new course for children in human rights, and their preparatory work soon encompassed all areas of child welfare.

These efforts culminated in the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most widely accepted human rights treaty in history. Adopted unanimously by the General Assembly, the Convention sets out social, economic, cultural and civil rights for children and pledges protection from violence, war, disasters and exploitation. As of November 1995, 181 countries had ratified the Convention, with just 10 countries to go before ratification is universal.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child, together with the mid-decade and year 2000 goals, has catapulted children's causes out of the dark recesses of family, community and national neglect and onto the centre stage of international development and human rights activity. But the price of progress is continued vigilance and hard work. UNICEF, as The State of the World's Children 1996 report indicates, is justifiably proud of its 50-year contribution to the cause of children. It now stands ready to face the challenge of maintaining that visibility and momentum on behalf of children for the next 50 years.

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