DEVELOPMENT: UN Critical of Shortfall on Promises to Children

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 7 2001 (IPS) - A new UN report criticises the international community for failing to meet most of the targets set at a landmark 1990 summit on children.

“We have seen significant progress for children – but not enough,” says the 141-page report, released Wednesday in advance of a September special session on children. Preparatory talks for the larger meeting are sheduled to begin Jun 11.

“The world has fallen short of achieving most of the goals of the World Summit for Children, not because they were too ambitious or were technically beyond reach – but largely because of insufficient investment,” says the report.

On the positive side of the ledger, 63 of the 189 UN member states achieved the summit goal of a one-third reduction in mortality among children under the age of five.

Deaths of young children from diarrhoeal diseases, one of the primary causes of under-five mortality in 1990, were halved in the course of the decade, thereby achieving a key summit goal – and saving as many as a million young lives.

“But for all the millions of young lives saved – and all the futures that have been enhanced by action at the global, national and community levels – many of the survival and development goals set by the summit, especially in the areas of health, nutrition and education, remain unfulfilled,” the report notes.

More than 10 million children still die each year, often from readily preventable causes. An estimated 150 million children are malnourished. Over 100 million are still out of school, 60 percent of them girls.

“Moreover, the obstacles to achieving these promises have become more daunting over the years, presenting us with an increasing number of new challenges,” it adds.

According to the report, the World Summit for Children was held when the end of Cold War had raised hopes for a peaceful world “in which resources squandered in military expenditures might be available for development purposes.”

“Unfortunately, the decade since the summit has witnessed unprecedented levels of ethnic conflicts, civil wars in which children and women have become either direct targets or collateral victims,” it says.

According to Human Rights Watch, an estimated 300,000 children under the age of 18 are participating in armed conflicts around the world.

The New York-based human rights organisation has investigated the use of children as soldiers in countries such as Uganda, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Colombia, Angola, Liberia and Lebanon.

The organisation has also documented the use of children on the frontlines of combat, as well as their use of porters, spies, guides, and in the case of many girls, as sexual slaves to military commanders.

The UN report also focuses on the HIV/AIDS epidemic which “has reached catastrophic proportions in several parts of the world, unraveling decades of gains in child survival and development, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.”

The disease is leaving millions of children orphaned as it kills teachers, health workers, and other professionals who maintain and operate some of the vital infrastructures of society.

But the report singles out chronic poverty as the biggest obstacle to meeting the needs and fulfilling the rights of children.

“At a time of unprecedented global prosperity and in a 30 trillion dollar global economy, half of humanity is desperately impoverished, with three billion people (out of a total world population of six billion) subsist on two dollars a day or less”.

Of these, some 1.2 billion people live in what the World Bank categorises as “absolute poverty”, half of them children.

At the same time, the gulf between rich and poor countries continues to widen. In the three and half decades between 1960 and 1995, the disparty in per capita incomes between industrial and developing nations has more than tripled, according to the report.

“Never in history have we seen such numbers. And never in the modern history of development cooperation have we seen overall aid to the world’s neediest countries fall to levels as low as they have in recent years.”

In 1992, official development assistance (ODA) stood at a high of about 63 billion dollars, only to keep slipping every year. ODA reached an all-time low of 0.22 percent of the combined gross national product (GNP) of developed countries in 1997 – a mere one third of the 0.7 per cent target agreed by the UN General Assembly some 30 years ago.

After a minor increase in 1998 and 1999, it fell back to its 1997 level of 49.6 billion dollars in 2000. Only four donors – Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and Swden – have consistently achieved the 0.7 target during the 1990s.

Most members of the Group of Seven (G-7) industrial nations, namely the US, UK, France, Italy, Germany, Canada and Japan, markedly decreased the volume of their aid effort over the decade, according to the report.

Meanwhile, the Special Session, which is also expected to discuss UN the report, will review the successes and failures of the 1990 summit.

A plan of action titled “A World Fit for Children”, to be adopted at the Special Session, calls for the creation of a “child- friendly world.”

World leaders attending the session are expected to commit themselves to follow-up actions and monitoring.

“We will develop national and regional action plans by the end of 2002, with a set of specific time-bound and measurable goals and targets based on this Plan of Action, with appropriate adaptation to specific country situations,” the leaders will pledge, according to draft still under negotiation.

“We will make these goals for children an integral part of national and sub-national development programmes, poverty reduction strategies, sector-wide approaches, and other relevant development plans,” the pledge continues.