10 May 2004 CRIN Special Session on Children, Issue 50 Contents *************************************************************************** - TWO YEARS ON: World Still Lagging on its Pledges to Improve Fate of Children [news] - GLOBAL MOVEMENT FOR CHILDREN: Who's Looking After The Children? [report] **************************************************************************** Email CRIN at info@crin.org to contribute information, such as regional preparations, publications, events and other activities concerning the Special Session on Children. Please note that we are unable to respond to requests addressed to crin_specialsession@domeus.co.uk **************************************************************************** - TWO YEARS ON: World Still Lagging on its Pledges to Improve Fate of Children [news] [NEW YORK, 7 May 2004] - Two years after the world's leaders agreed to time-bound goals to improve the welfare of youngsters, millions of children continue to die from preventable diseases and to lack such basic rights as education, safe drinking water and protection from abuse, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) warned today. "We are crawling toward goals that we should be marching toward," UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said in a message on the second anniversary of the UN General Assembly's first special session on children, noting that 30,000 youngsters under five die every day and chiding governments for lagging on the pledges they made. "We must pick up the pace and sustain it, or children will continue to suffer. For millions of the world's children, the achievement of these goals is not a bureaucratic matter, but a question of life and death," she added, calling on developed nations to fill a major shortfall in aid pledged to the world's poorest countries and on developing nations to invest adequately in their children. >From 8 to 10 May 2002, some 70 Heads of State and delegations from every nation met to draw up a set of time-bound goals to improve the health and survival of children, provide them with quality education, reverse the impact of HIV/AIDS on their lives and protect them from exploitation and violence. The most immediate of the goals - making sure that as many girls are in school as boys - is to be achieved by 2005, but girls continue to make up the majority of children out of school, Ms. Bellamy said. Almost 90 per cent of countries have made progress in integrating the goals into national plans, but now governments must take the next step, turning these plans into expanded programs for children, she stressed. Governments in poor countries could do more to focus their budgets on basic social services that help children survive and grow. At the same time, despite renewing agreements to raise the proportion of gross domestic product going to development aid to 0.7 percent, major developed nations have failed to come even half way to that target. On the positive side, UNICEF noted that Kenya increased its number of children in primary school by 1.3 million; Bangladesh continued to bring down child death and fertility rates and improve education of girls; Eritrea, Viet Nam, Guinea and Mali made strides in providing anti-malarial bed nets; and Cambodia, like Uganda and Brazil, reduced the rate of HIV infection while Botswana and other countries scaled up access to AIDS treatments. [source: UN. For more information, visit: http://www.un.org/news] --------------------------------------- - GLOBAL MOVEMENT FOR CHILDREN: Who's Looking After The Children? [report] [BARCELONA, 10 May 2004] - The world is seriously off track in achieving the Special Session and Millennium Development Goals, according to 'Who's Looking After the Children?' published today by the Global Movement for Children. Six hundred million children live in poverty, with little or no access to healthcare, education and opportunities for the future. Fifty-six million 'additional' child deaths will occur and 75 million children will continue to be denied access to education in 2015 if these goals are not met. These broken promises are hitting children the hardest. There was a palpable sense of urgency in May 2002 when 190 governments signed the outcome document of the UN Special Session on Children - "A World Fit for Children". These countries committed to time-bound goals for promoting healthy lives for children, providing quality education and protecting children from abuse, exploitation, violence and HIV/AIDS. And we do know how to achieve these goals. Solutions and policy options have been identified, tested and proven. What is needed is their application on a sufficient scale to make a real difference. The abolition of school fees in Kenya in January 2003, for example, brought 1.3 million children to school in a single year. "Urgent action is necessary if the promises made two years ago at the United Nations are not to be broken" said John Greensmith, Vice-Chair of the Global Movement for Children Convening Committee. "The goals are achievable if the political and financial support is provided." In 1970 the world's richest countries committed to a goal of spending 0.7 per cent of their income on aid to the world's poorest. Thirty-four years on, just five have met this target, leaving an accumulated amount of US $344 billion from 2000-2004 that should have gone to developing countries. This would have financed all the basic social services of the poorest countries during this time. This report calls on donor countries to meet their responsibilities to children by meeting the 0.7 per cent goal. Some of the world's largest international non-governmental organisations will meet today to discuss joint action on the challenges raised by this report. They will say that as well as a breakthrough in financing for development, civil society, citizens and communities also need to work together and do more to protect the rights of children. Their discussion coincides with the presentation of six children at the opening of the Universal Forum of Cultures, where they will speak to 3,000 delegates about their personal experiences of war, conflict, disability, child labour and HIV/AIDS. For more information, contact: Global Movement For Children c/o Plan International, Chobham House, Christchurch Way, Woking GU21 6JG, United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0)1483 755155; Fax: +44 (0)207 482 9778 Email: mdepaladella@gmfc.org Website: www.gmfc.org Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=4163 ******************************************************************************* The CRIN Special Session on Children is an electronic mailing list of the Child Rights Information Network (CRIN). CRIN does not accredit, validate or substantiate any information posted by the members to the CRIN Special Session on Children. The validity and accuracy of any information is the responsibility of the orginator. ********************************************************************************* -- The "child-rights" mailing list provides information on issues related to children's human rights. 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