Press Centre 2007/07/02: General Information
UNICEF Executive Director commends Turkey’s progress towards MDGs
UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman speaks with a boy on her visit to the Bakırköy pre–school bus, İstanbul.
Photograph by Sedat Suna © UNICEF Turkey 2007
İstanbul, June 29 2007 — UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman concluded a four–day visit to Turkey in late June that included two international conferences, a meeting with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and discussions with Turkish children, parents, academics and NGOs.
Ms. Veneman described the visit — her first to Turkey since her appointment as Executive Director in 2005 — as enlightening
and productive
.
Executive Director Ann M. Veneman at a meeting with representatives of Children’s Rights Committees in İstanbul.
Photograph by Sedat Suna
© UNICEF Turkey 2007
On behalf of the United Nations, Veneman addressed the fifteenth anniversary summit of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation initiative in İstanbul. The summit was attended by numerous heads of State and Government. The UNICEF Executive Director also took part in the opening session of the OECD World Forum on Measuring and Fostering the Progress of Societies.
Data is essential to effective decision–making and UNICEF collects a significant amount of data on children, much of which is included in our annual report The State of the World’s Children. We are very pleased to have been a part of this OECD conference on the importance of data for development,
Veneman told Turkish journalists at a press conference.
During her meeting with Premier Erdoğan, Veneman congratulated the Prime Minister on a major campaign to ensure that girls are enrolled in school. The campaign was launched by the Turkish Ministry of National Education in 2003 with support from UNICEF, and has resulted in the enrolment of over 300,000 children – mainly girls – who would otherwise have been out of school.
Veneman also met with a group of parents who have been taking part in courses on parenting at an adult education centre in İstanbul’s Bakırköy district. The parenting education programme, which incorporates information on issues such as health, nutrition and how to communicate with young children, has been developed with assistance from UNICEF. The parents, mostly from under–educated, low–income backgrounds, explained how their participation in the program had reduced their use of violence against children, improved their relations with their families and enhanced their children’s performance at school.
The Executive Director also discussed a wide range of topics with adolescents who are members of some of Turkey’s provincial children’s rights committees. The committees are currently organising their own children’s rights campaign with help from government agencies, UNICEF and the private sector.
At the press conference, Veneman noted that Turkey was making good progress towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in areas such as reducing under–five mortality by two–thirds by 2015, and raising school enrolment rates.
Relative to the developing world, Turkey is making good progress overall for its children. The country is advancing economically and many of its key social indicators show real improvement,
the Executive Director said. However, she added that, as in other middle–income countries, there were still “important disparities” among geographical areas. She also spoke of the need to improve the quality of education and to better address child protection issues.
For more information, please contact:
Sema Hosta, Communications Officer, UNICEF Turkey
Tel: +90 (0)312 454 1010
Mobile: +90 (0)533 622 8346
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