Region pledges greater effort for children

West African child rights experts, who ended a three-day technical meeting in Bamako, capital of Mali, on Friday, have agreed to adopt a five-point framework to improve the lives of children and promote their rights. The Operational Action Framework document, drafted by the participants, highlights five broad areas which are expected to form the basis of pro-children action plans, after the framework has been adopted by the heads of state of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). ECOWAS has declared 2001-2010 the "Decade of the Child". The areas targeted in the framework document include, firstly, promotion of the overall well-being of children - to be achieved by governments focusing on improved nutrition, increasing vaccination and other immunisation campaigns, and the implementation of national surveillance mechanisms. It also focuses on education which, it says, must be addressed through massive school reforms. The child rights experts in Bamako recommended that states in the region raise their school enrolment rates to at least 80 percent, and that savings through debt relief be allocated to school reforms. The third area of particular focus is HIV/AIDS. Participants called for a 20 percent drop in infection rates by 2005 and a 50 percent drop by 2010 in the number of HIV-positive children. Governments should also show greater care for AIDS orphans and other vulnerable children, they said. Violence, mistreatment and exploitation of children, and the need to include children in finding solutions to their problems, are the last two areas addressed in the Operation Action Framework. Last week's Bamako workshop, organised under the auspices of ECOWAS and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), reviewed progress made in the last decade in promoting children rights in West Africa. Opening the workshop, UNICEF Resident Representative in Mali, Pascal Villeneuve, said many West African countries had made little progress on children's issues of children in the last decade. Polio and guinea-worm eradications could, however, be highlighted as positive steps, he said. The framework document has to be approved by all national ministries in charge of children's affairs before being it can be adopted by heads of states at the next ECOWAS summit in October in Dakar, Senegal. See related IRIN stories: IRIN interview with Awa Gueye Kebe, President of ECOWAS conference of ministers. WEST AFRICA: Experts review progress on child rights