Ms. Carol Bellamy was appointed the fourth Executive Director of UNICEF, succeeding Mr. James P. Grant, who had led the Organization for 15 years until his death in January 1995. The new Executive Director has indicated that improving the financial management and administrative and programme systems of UNICEF and ensuring more effective and efficient programme delivery will allow UNICEF to move into the next century (see fig. 11).
1995 is the mid-point of the decade-long strategy of the World Summit for Children to meet global objectives for the welfare of children. The international community's goals and objectives for children and the broad outline of a global strategy have been set for the remainder of the decade by the World Summit for Children and by the imperatives of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The International Conference on Population and Development and the World Summit for Social Development have reiterated the commitment of the international community to these goals. The Fourth World Conference on Women, to be held at Beijing in September 1995, can be expected to take these commitments a stage further, with a heightened emphasis on the need for gender equity and equality and for special attention to the girl-child.
The progress report presented to the UNICEF Executive Board on follow-up to the World Summit for Children noted that impressive progress was under way and that the majority of developing countries were on track to achieve a majority of the goals.
In 1994, UNICEF supported programmes in 149 countries -- 46 in Africa, 37 in Latin America and the Caribbean (including 10 Caribbean island countries), 34 in Asia (including 13 Pacific island countries), 14 in the Middle East and North Africa and 18 in central and eastern Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Baltic States. The total programme expenditure reached $801 million. The third issue of The Progress of Nations, released in June 1995, provided up-to-date data on indicators for monitoring progress towards the goals, ranking countries according to their results.
UNICEF is addressing the main causes of child mortality, with a focus on prevention, including immunization and the prevention and treatment of the major killers -- acute respiratory infections, diarrhoeal diseases and malaria in areas of high endemicity. Immunization coverage was sustained globally at the 80 per cent level, but the regional average in Africa remained significantly lower, as it did in 1993. The Bamako Initiative, as a strategy for strengthening local primary health care systems, expanded to 33 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Global and country-level activities continued to achieve goals for the year 2000 of universal iodization of salt and vitamin A distribution to all vulnerable people.
Most countries in East Asia, Latin America and the Middle East achieved the mid-decade goal of universal access to primary education. However, more than one half of developing countries, including high-population countries in South Asia and Africa, still have to make major strides before all their children can be provided adequate opportunities for basic education. Girls' primary education was the dominant component of UNICEF support for education in South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and North Africa.
UNICEF assisted some 100 countries in achieving their water supply and sanitation goals and worked to refine strategies that emphasize sustainability and maximize health and <%6>socio-economic benefits. Progress was made in gaining acceptance of the women's equality and empowerment framework, as well as the life-cycle approach, as tools for promoting gender-balanced programmes for children and development.
UNICEF is committed to mainstream development programming, particularly as related to activities in basic social services. While pursuing these long-term development efforts, UNICEF was also called upon to play an active role in responding to many emergencies in which women and children were the hardest-hit victims. Approximately 25 per cent of UNICEF's programme expenditure in 1994 was devoted to providing life-saving essential services for children and women in emergencies.
In the former Yugoslavia, UNICEF was charged with a mandate to provide relief assistance in situations of great insecurity for its own staff. In Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Tajikistan, UNICEF helped to address the special needs of refugee populations and internally displaced people through the re-establishment of the cold chain, the provision of basic vaccines and health supplies, and support for educational systems.
UNICEF continues to pay special attention to Africa and other least developed countries. Despite the continuing and threatening emergencies in certain parts of sub-Saharan Africa, there are many positive developments that go almost unnoticed. In the areas of special action for children, 25 of the 46 countries in sub-Saharan Africa have either increased or sustained the immunization levels of 75 per cent or higher reached in 1990; the usage rate of oral rehydration therapy has now reached 50 per cent; salt iodization measures are being implemented in 28 of the 39 countries affected by iodine deficiency disorders; and guinea worm disease is well on the way to being eliminated from most of Africa.
Africa remains the continent with the greatest needs. UNICEF devotes some 38 per cent of its financial and human resources to sub-Saharan Africa. It helps build capacities and empower communities and families. In countries emerging from disasters, programmes will aim at strengthening local capacity, solidarity and coping mechanisms, which could become the embryo of new societies. At the national level, UNICEF is strengthening its ability to support Governments in policy development affecting children and in mobilizing resources for children. At the same time, UNICEF is participating actively in a United Nations-wide initiative for Africa, working to strengthen country-level collaboration towards all the elements of sustainable human development, poverty reduction and accelerated economic growth.
Unaccompanied children and internally displaced people were a major challenge for UNICEF in Rwanda, where an unprecedented relief effort was mounted to protect refugees from the rapid spread of disease and famine. In Angola, Burundi and Somalia, UNICEF continued to provide assistance in the areas of health, education and water supply and sanitation. In Mozambique, under a national plan of reconstruction, UNICEF reoriented its emergency activities towards rebuilding basic services for health, water supply and sanitation and education. In Liberia and Sierra Leone, despite facing an increasingly difficult situation, UNICEF continued to provide essential emergency services. Trauma counselling and physical rehabilitation for handicapped children were priorities, as were programmes for violently abused women and girls and vocational training for child soldiers.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child has been embraced by more States than any other human rights treaty in history. By August 1995, 177 parties had ratified the Convention, with only 17 countries needed to attain the goal of universal ratification by the end of 1995.
At its forty-ninth session, the General Assembly discussed for the first time the issue of children's rights and adopted resolutions on the protection of children affected by armed conflicts; the need to adopt efficient international measures for the prevention and eradication of the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography; implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child; and the plight of street children (resolutions 49/209 to 49/212, all of 23 December 1994). UNICEF was asked to play an active role in support of those resolutions. Furthermore, UNICEF, in collaboration with the Centre for Human Rights, has been assisting the Committee on the Rights of the Child in monitoring implementation of the Convention. UNICEF is supporting the comprehensive study of the impact of armed conflict on children in response to General Assembly resolution 48/157 of 20 December 1993.
The World Summit for Social Development has provided new impetus to the work of UNICEF on behalf of children within the United Nations system, setting that work within a wider international effort towards poverty eradication and social development. After two years of systematic mobilization and persistent technical refinement in which UNICEF played an active role along with UNDP and UNFPA, the "20/20" initiative was adopted at the World Summit for Social Development as a legitimate and useful instrument for guiding, assessing and monitoring overall official development assistance and national budgetary allocations to basic social programmes.
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