By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, May 12 2003 (IPS)

When 70 world leaders gathered at the United Nations last year for a special session of the General Assembly, they solemnly pledged to create ”a world fit for children”.

The heads of state, along with 1,700 delegates representing non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from 117 countries, collectively agreed to a time-bound set of goals to improve the quality of life for children worldwide.

But only one-half of the world’s governments have even taken the first step of developing a plan of action to meet these goals set for 2005, 2010 and 2015, according to the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

They include: reducing infant and under-five mortality rates by at least one-third; reducing child malnutrition for those under five; developing and implementing national early childhood development policies; eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education and protecting children from sexual exploitation and the impact of armed conflict.

Of 2.1 billion children in the world, one-half live in abject poverty, 150 million are malnourished, 120 million never go to school and 11 million die from totally preventable causes every year, says UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy.

”These are the things that governments must focus on with consistency and rigor,” she said last week, as she took stock of the successes and failures of the U.N. Special Session on Children held May 8-10 2002.

Bellamy regretted that resources and attention that should have gone to children’s issues, including health, education, HIV/AIDS and sexual exploitation, had instead been devoted to crisis and war.

The greatest negative impact of the most recent crisis – the U.S.-led war on Iraq – has also been on children, who still face ”grave threats to their survival, health and general well-being” despite the war’s end, she added.

To fund its emergency relief efforts to help children in Iraq, UNICEF appealed last month for 166 million dollars from the international community. To date, two-thirds of that amount has been raised.

The United States, a key contributor to UNICEF, has earmarked a staggering 69 billion dollars both for the war effort and for the reconstruction of post-war Iraq.

All 189 U.N. member states agreed at the special session to improve children’s health and survival, and also provide children with a quality education. Additionally, they pledged to ”reverse the impact of HIV/AIDS on children” and ”protect them from exploitation and violence”.

According to UNICEF, ”a world fit for children” can be created only through political commitments at the highest levels of government.

It has called on governments to establish or strengthen appropriate national bodies for the protection of children, and has urged U.N. member states to allocate at least 20 percent of their national budgets to basic social services that benefit children.

Additionally, developed nations have been encouraged to raise their level of official development assistance (ODA) to reach the target of 0.7 percent of their gross national product (GNP), and to allocate at least 20 percent of their ODA to basic social services.

UNICEF has also highlighted two national initiatives that illustrate the need for world leaders to commit themselves fully to investing in children and to the possible positive results.

In Kenya, the government pledged to provide free education to all children beginning January 2003. With the abolition of school fees, school registration soared by an additional 1.5 million children.

In Afghanistan, a concerted effort to encourage children’s education resulted in nearly two million children turning up in classrooms for the first school day in March 2003. The country has seen school attendance double, with a large number of girls attending for the first time in years.

Bellamy said that the only way to make real change for children is through bold strokes. In Kenya, it was the stroke of the pen to eliminate school fees; in Afghanistan, it was a stroke of inspiration to make rebuilding education the country’s first major priority, she added.

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