Voices of other Government officials

"…We (must) eliminate poverty as a children's disease…children must be at the core in our fight against poverty. That cannot be done without additional resources. Both developed and developing countries have to deliver. We must all invest in children."

- Hilde F. Johnson,
Minister of International Development, Norway

"Every child has the comprehensive right to protection as well as care from the family, from caregivers and from social institutions. There is no doubt that it is thanks to the Convention on the Rights of the Child that children today are acknowledged to have the same personal dignity as adults and that they have specific rights."

- Herbert Haupt,
Federal Minister for Social Security and Generations. Austria

"Our gathering here today is not to pay lip service to the world's children, but to chart a new course of action that will lift them out of the web of poverty."

- Hajiya Aisha Ismail,
Minister for Women's Affairs and Youth Development, Nigeria

"Rightly this Special Session on Children has been proclaimed unique and historic. We need to ensure that it is so, not by words alone, but by determined and concrete action."

- Tuiloma Neroni Slade,
Permanent Representative of Samoa to the United Nations