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UN discusses new global plan for children
Related to country: United States

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UN discusses new global plan for children

THE United Nations is meeting today in New York to deliberate on efforts to better the lot of children across the world and review progress made in the past years.

Chief Communication Media and External Relations Director of UNICEF in Nigeria, Christine Jaulmes, said the parley will review progress made and develop a new plan of action for the next decade called "A world Fit for Children."

The statement reads in part: "Heads of State and other dignitaries have gathered at the United Nations Headquarters in New York today for a landmark conference to review progress towards "A World Fit for Children," a plan of action to improve the lives of children created by governments in 2002."

UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman said the forum would provide a platform for discussing an ideal world fit for children.

"Five years ago, world leaders pledged to promote healthy lives; to provide quality education; to combat HIV and AIDS; and to protect children against abuse, exploitation and violence. Now, we are taking stock to see where we need to push further and faster to build a world that is truly fit for children," she said. In 2006, for the first time since global data has been collected, deaths of children under age five fell below 10 million. More children are in school today than ever before, especially girls. More children are registered at birth and there is a greater focus on protecting children from violence, abuse and the worst forms of child labour, the organisation stated.

UNICEF observed that 9.7 million children under age five continue to die each year and, as the world prepares for the International Year of Sanitation, nearly 900 million children lack access to this most basic service.

The special General Assembly high-level meeting, known as A World Fit for Children +5 (WFFC+5), will examine advances and setbacks in child well-being since the 2002 Special Session on Children. The assembly is expected to adopt a declaration reaffirming global and national commitments to the goals set in 2002.

In addition to heads of state and government, some 130 high-level national delegations will be present, including more than 40 government ministers. Twenty children will participate in the conference as members of their national delegations. Hundreds of NGOs will also gather in New York for discussions and advocacy on children's issues.

To promote ownership of the occasion, more than 90 children from around the world have been meeting for two days in New York to prepare for "A World Fit for Children +5."

The highlight of the Forum was a live satellite link-up between seven of the children in New York, selected by their peers, and members of the new global entity called 'The Elders', including Graca Machel, Desmond Tutu and Mary Robinson, who were gathered in Cape Town.

Nigeria will be represented at this Session by the Minister of Women Affairs. The President and the Speaker of the Children's Parliament will also attend the event.

Meanwhile, there is growing concern that close to one billion people will never receive a formal education because governments around the world are not living up to pledges to provide free primary schooling for all by 2015.

At a meeting in Senegal's capital Dakar in 2000, governments from 164 countries had agreed on goals including the provision of good quality, free primary education for all and a 50-percent improvement in adult literacy by the middle of next decade.

According to a report by Reuters, halfway to that deadline, the world's richest nations are failing to live up to pledges to help the poorest and the goals remain elusive, according to the Global Campaign for Education (GCE), a grouping of thousands of teachers' unions and civil society groups including Save the Children and Oxfam.

"At current performance rates, close to a billion people won't receive education in their lifetime, let alone in the next seven years as promised," said Nelida Cespedes, a GCE board member from Peru.

Universal primary education by 2015 is also one of the eight UN Millennium Development Goals agreed by world governments.

The campaign group said in a report that 72 million children were still not attending primary school and that 774 million adults - or one in five - were illiterate. Although many of them were in Africa, the study said several African governments had made marked improvements in providing schooling.

The report coincided with a meeting in Dakar of ministers and educational specialists from around the world, hosted by Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade and the Director General of U.N. cultural and education agency UNESCO, Koichiro Matsuura.

"More than 18 million new teachers will be needed by 2015, nearly four million in sub-Saharan Africa alone," Matsuura told the summit, attended by hundreds of school children.

UNESCO said in a report last month that good progress was being made, with primary school enrolment rising by 36 percent in sub-Saharan Africa and by 22 percent in South and West Asia between 1999 and 2005.

But it said external foreign aid for education was "far short of the $11 billion required annually" and was not targeted enough at Africa or at primary school education.


December 13, 2007 | 6:43 AM Comments  0 comments

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