Press conference by unicef executive director

 

The work of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in the fields of child survival, child protection and education could make a huge difference towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals, Carol Bellamy, its outgoing Executive Director, said at her farewell press briefing this afternoon.

Conceding that the Fund had “taken some hits” in the area of child survival under her watch, she said it was true that it had broadened its agenda over the past 10 years to take on child protection issues and HIV/AIDS much more prominently.  It had done that in the belief that investment in breaking the cycle of poverty was necessary in order to make truly sustainable progress on child survival.  To do that, UNICEF had worked to draw attention to the numerous threats that engulfed children as they grew older and prevented them from fulfilling their potential throughout their lives.

In the area of child protection, she said UNICEF had played a pivotal role in putting the exploitation of children on the map, though much work remained to be done on the issues of child soldiers, children affected by conflict, sexual abuse, trafficking and child labour, among others.  However, Governments were no longer as free to ignore those issues as they had been 10 years ago.  A series of regional consultations on violence against children, scheduled for this summer, would result in a ground-breaking global study on the question of violence against children, mostly in the home and in the community, in 2006.  That work was led by UNICEF on behalf of a group of partners, including the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

While children could not be immunized against HIV/AIDS, they must be protected against it through education, openness and attitude shifts, she stressed.  UNICEF would be launching a global campaign on children and AIDS later this year to make clear what a threat the disease had become to childhood.  UNICEF’s latest progress for children report, launched two weeks ago, showed that the world was making measurable progress in getting both girls and boys into school.  The report showed the need to accelerate efforts to attain the Millennium Goals, but even without the goals, nothing could turn the tide against poverty the way that education could, especially for girls.

Describing UNICEF as an organization that made a difference, she said that over the past decade or so, child mortality had dropped by some 16 per cent globally since 1990 -- 34 per cent without counting sub-Saharan Africa; deaths from diarrhoea had fallen by half over the same period; measles deaths had declined by more than one third since 1999; the number of children out of school had dropped below 100 million for the first time ever; and more countries were adopting legislation and taking other steps to protect children from the worst kinds of abuse and exploitation.

However, those positive indications had not nearly been enough, she said, noting that more than a billion children -- more than half the number alive today -- were living in extreme poverty.  They were being effectively robbed of childhood by the triple threat of AIDS, conflict and poverty.  More investment in the health, well-being and protection of children was essential if any of the Millennium Development Goals were to be achieved.

She said that UNICEF’s 10,000 staffers, operating in 158 countries, were seeking solutions in the field every day, a testament to the agency’s pragmatic optimism.  The Fund had been created with hope and optimism and was continually renewed by the hope and optimism that children brought to the world.  She added that she remained fundamentally optimistic, despite the triple threat, the rapid global changes that had changed children’s lives since 1995, and the long road to the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals.

A correspondent asked if the negative publicity about the United Nations had affected UNICEF, and whether the agency had been criticized for taking on too much of a feminist agenda.

Ms. Bellamy replied that the Fund had not been affected and its budget had doubled over the past 10 years.  Nevertheless, when the United Nations was under attack, even deservedly -- and changes were needed in the Organization, including UNICEF -- then all its parts were affected.

As for a feminist agenda, she reiterated that if women continued to be second-class citizens throughout the world and were not more empowered to participate fully in their societies, their families would be in jeopardy and their children would, in turn, be threatened.  If that was radically feminist, so be it.  The woman was not only the bearer of children, but also the key to keeping a stable family together all over the world.

Another journalist asked whether she was concerned about a change of emphasis or direction at UNICEF under the new leadership.  She said that while she hoped she had made a difference during her tenure, she was the only one leaving and the senior management would remain in place.

She said the agency had a strategic plan with five clear focus areas -- health, education, child protection, fighting HIV/AIDS and policy analysis -- and while she fully expected her successor to make her mark, the general thrust of UNICEF’s work would continue under the guidance of its board, consisting of Member States.  She did not see a major shift in emphasis.

Asked whether she anticipated that her successor might be required to push the Bush administration’s agenda on birth control and abortion, she said she did not expect that.  One brought UNICEF’S agenda rather than one’s national agenda or that of one’s government and that was what she expected of the new Executive Director.

She told another questioner, who asked about the need for reform, that the human resources policies of the United Nations, including UNICEF, were quite old-fashioned.  They should be more flexible, in line with the needs of the twenty-first century.

Another correspondent asked about the main obstacles that UNICEF faced in fighting poverty, hunger and child smuggling.  How many children had died during her tenure from hunger and lack of clean water?

 Ms. Bellamy said she had no figures, but referred him to the 2005 edition of The State of the World’s Children, which would give him an idea of the situation in terms of diarrhoea, malnutrition.  Also, UNICEF and the WHO had released a new joint publication on immunization coverage.

Turning to obstacles, she said that more could be done for children with better political leadership both in the richest nations and the poor countries.  There should be more investment in basic social services.  Basic functioning health clinics were needed, rather than five star hospitals.  Similarly, basic education would help children understand HIV/AIDS so that they would not get infected.

Regarding clean water, she noted that improvement in access to clean water over the last decade had not been matched with respect to sanitation.  Without more attention to sanitation, the benefits of access to clean water would only be modestly felt.

Another journalist, referring to the risk of UNICEF spreading itself too thin, asked about the importance of family planning women’s reproductive rights to its mandate.

Ms. Bellamy said she did worry about UNICEF being spread too thin, but that was why the agency had a strategic plan.  The plan encompassed five areas, but that did not mean each of those things was being done in every country.  Committed to technical competence in those areas and investing in them, the agency’s focus on HIV/AIDS, for example, dealt with its impact on children and mother-to-child transmission.  Work dealing with AIDS orphans would be more integrated into programmes in sub-Saharan Africa, which still had the majority of them.  And while AIDS was a real issue in Asia, the focus there would be more on preventing mother-to-child transmission.

Regarding family planning and reproductive health, she pointed out that good maternal health was important to child survival and to the woman’s functioning in the family.  While the loss of a father caused a number of negative consequences, with the loss of the mother the family very often broke up.

She added that UNICEF’s board-approved family planning policy had been in place since 1993, before her arrival.  It focused on safe motherhood and responsible parenthood.  It did not promote any particular kind of a family planning, but it did recognize the importance of spacing children so that both the mother and the children remained healthy.

Asked how much blame could be attached to sub-Saharan African leaders for not addressing the problem of mother-to-child transmission of HIV quickly enough, Ms. Bellamy replied that she would not limit the blame to those leaders.  HIV/AIDS was a global issue that, on balance, was still growing.  There had been failures of leadership in the political, traditional, religious and other spheres.  Leaders must be much more engaged in mobilizing the entire society against the epidemic.

It had taken far too long to break the silence, she said, adding that it still had not been broken in many parts of the world, including parts of sub-Saharan Africa.  Sometimes the silence was broken only for public consumption, and it was still not broken at the family and community levels.  Leaving HIV/AIDS solely to the minister of health was a dead giveaway that the Government was not mobilizing the entire society.  AIDS was not just an infectious disease, but a global disaster.

Responding to a question about Security Council action on children in armed conflict, Ms. Bellamy said that on the positive side there was now an Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and an amendment to that instrument dealing with the non-recruitment for combat purposes of children under the age of 18 years.  There had also been much more attention to the issue of children affected by conflict, the seminal work by Graça Machel almost 10 years ago, and the appointment of a Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict.

The Special Representative’s report to the Security Council no longer merely stated the problem, but actually named the countries and factions involved, she said.  War was no longer between States, but within countries, involving the multiple warring factions.  It was no longer about holding territory and halting advances, but about destroying the enemy, with much more sexual violence, which had a particularly great impact on girls.  Even disarmament, demobilization and reintegration programmes did not consider girls, who had babies rather than guns to turn in.

Asked about the practical effect of the fact that the United States had not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, she noted that while the United States and Somalia were the only countries not to have ratified the instrument, there was a “spotty record out there” of many countries that had ratified, when it came to recognizing child rights.  However, the Convention was starting to take root and it was making a difference in the policies of some countries, giving additional strength to the advocates for children.  So the fact that the United States had not ratified the Convention, much of which was based on United States civil rights language, was unfortunate.

Citing the legal arguments that ratifying the Convention would impact on States’ right, she pointed out that such countries as Canada and Germany, whose provinces and States were much stronger than those in the United States, had not fallen apart for having ratified it.  If anything, they were even stronger.  Similarly, there was simply no validity to the argument that ratifying children’s rights would take away parents’ rights.  It was very clear that the family was the key building block for children’s rights.

* *** *