Getting down to the business of building a world fit for children

9 May 2002, NEW YORK - The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), a senior global grouping of lawmakers, has launched a list of initiatives that are aimed at encouraging countries to protect and enhance child rights and participation. The plans include creating a committee to monitor what national parliaments are doing for children, establishing a public advocate or ombudsperson to investigate violations of children's rights, holding an annual parliamentary meeting about the fate of the world's children and creating a children's parliament to encourage youth to participate in social change.

The IPU announced the initiatives at a Parliamentary Forum, which was sponsored by the IPU and UNICEF to run alongside the UN Special Session on Children. The event opened with a tough question from Bintou Sonko, a 12-year-old delegate representing Gambia at the UN Special Session on Children: "When are you going to live up to the promises that you have made to children at conferences like this one?".

Bintou, who stands just over four-feet tall, posed the question to a packed conference room that included 250 members of parliament from 70 countries.

The young Gambian delegate said children want to see the establishment of more schools, free testing for HIV/AIDS, medicines to treat diseases, laws put in place to punish those who exploit children and the establishment of a children's parliament so that children's voices could be heard.

Ebrahim Saloojee, a member of parliament from South Africa and chair of the country's Portfolio Committee on Social Development, came on next and emphasized the importance of making sure that all legislation passed by national parliaments takes children's rights into account.

Glenys Kinnock, Co-President of the Joint Parliamentary Assembly of African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States and the European Union (ACP-EU), said there is an urgent need to mobilize resources to implement international commitments for children. "You can plan until you're blue in the face but unless you put money behind it, it's just a waste of time," she said.

The floor was then opened to two hours of debate in which members of parliament, representatives of non-governmental organizations and children put forth suggestions of ways to protect children's rights and better include children in the democratic process.

Later in the day, at a panel entitled 'Financing A World Fit for Children', delegates discussed how to pay for some of the IPU's recommendations.

The Brazilian Minister of Education and Sports, Paulo Renato Souza, encouraged developing countries to put children at the center of their development plans and then to devise innovative ways of funding programmes for children.

Hilda Fra Johnson, Norway's Minister of International Development, called on 'rich countries' to allocate more funding for overseas development aid.

The panel concluded with remarks by Mark Malloch Brown, Administrator of the UN Development Programme, who lamented the fact that only two per cent of total overseas development aid is used to provide primary education for children, which is one of the most sustainable ways to invest in children. Mr. Brown, however, summed up his remarks with a note of optimism. "Licking this problem is not only our obligation, but perhaps for the first time ever, it's a very realistic opportunity."

His optimism was contagious. Bintou Sonko, the 12-year-old from Gambia who was so skeptical in the morning, said she was pleased with the results of the forum and hoped that the promises would become realities.