UNICEF executive board endorses programmes for children in 'difficult circumstances', including 'street children' and war victims.

UNICEF Executive Board endorses programmes for children in "difficult circumstances', including "street children' and war victims

Programmes to help children affected by armed conflicts, exploitation and other difficult circumstances were endorsed by the Executive Board of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) at its 1986 annual meeting (New York, 14-25 April). The Board decided that UNICEF, in collaboration with concerned agencies, should play a major role within the United Nations system in promoting programmes to benefit "street children'.

The Fund's 41-nation governing body also re-endorsed priority for implementing UNICEF's Child Survival and Development Revolution, adopted as policy in 1983, in the context of primary health care and community-based services and approved programme expenditures of $84.5 million.

It also approved a commitment of $232.54 million for the 1986-1987 biennial budget, and endorsed the emergency appeal--made in April by UNICEF Executive Director James P. Grant--for an additional $102 million for the agency's increased activities in Africa and recommended that in the future such appeals be reviewed by the Board.

Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, in addressing the Board, said that UNICEF must remain in the vanguard of efforts to reduce infant mortality as called for in the International Development Strategy of the Third Development Decade. UNICEF's Child Survival and Development Revolution, based on a "creative, practical approach' to sustaining and accelerating progress for children even in conditions of economic stress and constructed resources, "vividly demonstrated the innovative potential of international co-operation and the essentiality of the United Nations system for responding to the emerging needs of a changing world', he said.

In the short time since the Revolution was launched, it had accomplished much more than was expected. There had been an increase in the use and awareness of oral rehydration thereapy (ORT) and the once receding dream of universal child immunization was now moving closer, he said.

Fortieth anniversary: Mr. Grant reviewed the Fund's 40-year history, stressing there had been extraordinary progress for children in certain basic respects: infant and child mortality rates had been halved since 1950; literacy rates had soared. The agency had acted to make itself more efficient, to make its programmes more effective and to secure new means of raising new resources for children.

Although UNICEF would continue to emphasize oral rehydration therapy and universal child immunization by 1990 as the "cutting edge' of its programmes to reduce infant and child mortality, within the overall strengthening of primary health care systems in the countries concerned, the Board emphasized that equal emphasis should be placed on child development, with programmes stressing nutrition, food security, water supply and sanitation, and education. Increased attention should also be given to the importance of women in development, the Board stated.

The Fund was asked to promote at the international level awareness of and disseminate information about children in especially difficult circumstances, including residents of areas of violent conflict, working children, street children and victims of abuse and neglect. At the country level, it was called on to support governmental and non-governmental organizations in formulating policies and implementing programmes for such children.

The agency was also asked to promote government, professional and private awareness of the need for preventive and rehabilitative action for those children, keeping in mind the need for UNICEF to concentrate mainly on advocacy. All countries were urged to consider increasing UNICEF's resources to enable it to expand its activities with regard to those children.

The Board recommended that the agency's co-operative programmes in Latin America should continue, with special emphasis on programmes designed to go beyond child survival, including growth monitoring, supplementary feeding and the promotion of breast-feeding, programmes to advance women's role in development, programmes concerned with children in difficult circumstances, particularly "street children', and continuing research on the impact of economic recession on social programmes.

Declaration

The Board adopted by acclamation a Declaration reaffirming the aims of the Fund--which will celebrate its fortieth anniversary on 11 December 1986. It called on all Governments, organizations and individuals to strengthen their attention to the vital needs of children and their families; to mobilize all necessary efforts in connection with the child survival and development strategy; and to sustain their determination that the first priority of society must be the protection, growth and development of children.

The Board held its first joint meeting with non-governmental organizations on 16 April, at which recommendations for action by the Fund in the areas of child health, working children, street children and children in armed conflicts and natural disasters were put forward. The Board called for further joint meetings when appropriate, particularly in connection with major policy issues.

The League of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies was given the Maurice Pate Memorial Award and $25,000 in recognition of its "Child Alive' programme, which promotes the use of ORT and supports national immunization programmes around the world. The award was established in honour of the first Executive Director of UNICEF.

Also honoured with special UNICEF awards were: Colombian President Belisario Betancur, for his outstanding leadership in launching a five-year National Plan for Child Survival and Development; and Prince Talal bin Abdul Aziz al Saud of Saudi Arabia, appointed an honorary delegate to the Board in appreciation for his active support of the cause of children, both as an individual and as President of the Arab Gulf Fund for United Nations Development Organizations. Awards were presented by Board Chairman Anwarul Chowdhury of Bangladesh.

Photo: President Jose Napoleon Duarte of El Salvador (left), with UNICEF Executive Director James P. Grant, launches nationwide immunization campaign.

Photo: The UNICEF Executive Board acted to promote programmes to help street children (above left) and others in difficult circumstances, such as war victims (above right).