From Africa Recovery, Vol.13#4 (December 1999), page 3

Wanted: a just, humane world

Ensure the well-being of every child and adolescent, insists UNICEF

By Frehiwot Bekele

Within a generation, the world could -- and should -- become a place where every infant is properly nurtured and cared for, where every child receives a quality basic education, and where every adolescent is given the support and guidance he or she needs in the difficult transition to adulthood, says the State of the World's Children 2000, published in December by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).

Acknowledging the progress made in protecting children over the course of this century and in the decade since the 1989 adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, UNICEF says much more remains to be done. It draws particular attention to three tragedies of which children and women are currently the main victims, largely in the developing world: armed conflict, HIV/AIDS and poverty. And the report adds that women are victims of these ills in disproportionate numbers due to gender discrimination.

Victims of war, AIDS

Nearly 90 per cent of victims of war today are civilians, mainly women and children. Around 540 million children (one in four) "live with the ominous and ever-present hum of violence that might erupt any time," or are displaced or made refugees by ongoing conflicts. In the last decade, more than 2 million children have died as a result of armed conflicts, while 6 million others have been injured or disabled and hundreds of thousands have been conscripted into war as "soldiers, sex slaves or porters." Between 8,000 and 10,000 children are killed by landmines every year. Conflicts in Africa accounted for more than half of all war-related deaths in 1996 and resulted in more than 8 million refugees and displaced persons.

Each day, 8,500 children and young people around the world are infected with HIV, and 2,500 women die of AIDS, UNICEF states. Globally, nearly 13 million children under the age of 15 have been orphaned by AIDS, 10 million of them in Africa. In sub-Saharan Africa, 22.5 million people have HIV. In 1998, 2 million Africans died from AIDS, compared to the 200,000 mostly women and children who died because of conflicts. Life expectancy in Zambia has dropped from 50 to 40 years since 1990 because of HIV/AIDS, while in Botswana, where it had been projected to exceed 69 years by 2000-2005 in the absence of AIDS, it is now predicted to plummet to 41 years in that period.

'Merciless poverty'

Per capita income is lower today in 80 countries than it was a decade ago, says UNICEF. One in five of the earth's inhabitants (1.2 billion people, including 600 million children) live in "unyielding and merciless poverty," each surviving on less than $1 per day. Some 250 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 work, 50-60 million of them in "hazardous circumstances." An estimated 130 million primary-school-age children, 60 per cent of them girls, cannot attend school because their parents cannot pay fees, they have to work to contribute to their families' incomes, or they are in conflict situations. Each day 30,500 boys and girls under the age of five die mainly of preventable causes, and each year 585,000 women die of complications during pregnancy or child birth.

We all know what is needed, says the report, to alleviate poverty and improve living conditions: ensuring universal access to basic social services, such as safe water, sanitation, basic education and health care (including family planning). This would cost $70-80 bn annually, in a $30-trillion world economy. And it could be achieved through implementation of UNICEF's 20/20 Initiative, which advocates the allocation of 20 per cent of both national budgets and official development assistance (ODA) to vital social services. However, ODA has fallen by more than 20 per cent in the 1992-97 period, UNICEF observes.

One reason why poor countries find it difficult to provide basic services to their populations is their external debt obligations. Cameroon, for example, spent 36 per cent of its national budget on debt servicing in 1996-97, compared to 4 per cent on basic social services. Tanzania's debt payments were four times what it spent on primary education, and nine times its basic health spending. In 1997, sub-Saharan Africa's external debt amounted to 108 per cent of its gross national product.

The State of the World's Children 2000 sets the scene for a conference on children which UNICEF will hold in late 2001 under the auspices of the UN General Assembly. The conference will bring together governments, international institutions, a wide range of civil society organizations and the private sector to promote the well-being of children and adolescents.

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