IRIN Interview with UNICEF Executive Director, Carol Bellamy

Ahead of the UN Special Session on Children in New York later this month, UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy spoke to IRIN on the establishment of a new agenda for children’s rights, and her expectations for the 19-21 September conference. QUESTION: Part of the mandate of the Special Session on Children is a review of the past 10 years. Is there any comfort that can be drawn - anything positive - over that period? ANSWER: Absolutely. Actually I think what distinguishes the Special Session on Children from some of these other meetings is that it is taking a look over a broader period of time. For example, if you look over these 10 years, over 60 countries have achieved the objective that was set over 10 years ago to reduce mortality among children under five by a third and over 100 countries have reduced it by a fifth. That’s a very important factor. That means more children are alive today, whether it’s through immunisation, or Vitamin A or better nutrition or more access to clean water ... We’re on the brink of eradicating polio from the world; more kids are in school, net school enrolment has increased outpacing population growth. So while it’s a mixed picture, and there are clearly parts of the world and particularly sub-Saharan Africa that has seen less improvement, there’s no question that conditions globally have improved over the past 10 years. Q: On the specific example of sub-Saharan Africa, we have the problems of falling school enrolments, child malnutrition, HIV/AIDS. These are issues that in a sense are part of global, systemic problems. How do you hope that these issues can be addressed by the conference? A: Well they are global issues, they’re not limited to sub-Saharan Africa ... That being said, I see certainly in Africa a sea change in approaching HIV/AIDS today as compared with even 18 months ago. Until there’s the full mobilisation of society from top to the bottom on HIV/AIDS that will not happen. And I see that start to happen, so I’m at least encouraged by the efforts in that area. I’m less encouraged in the area of conflict - although Southern Africa is not as caught up in conflict as other parts of Africa - because as we enter the 21st century clearly the victims of war today are not military any more but civilians. Poverty remains, but if we can look at issues like basic social services and kids getting an education and having basic health care, I believe that these are two of the best ways to really confront poverty and really take it on frontally. Q: And is debt relief part of the equation? A: I think debt relief has to be part of the equation. There’s no question that in many countries particularly in Africa more is spent on servicing debt every year than on basic services. And it’s taken much to long to move the agenda of debt relief ahead. Hopefully it will begin to move now, but that requires as well good governance, it requires countries that are strangled by debt not to re-engage in putting that money received by debt relief into armaments. But rather again we hope, and that’s why the Special Session on Children is important, we hope an understanding of investment in basic health and basic education will move these countries forward economically as well as humanly. Q: One of the other objectives of the Special Session is a new pledge of action by countries for the next decade. What are the key aspects of that? A: Well there’s unfinished business from the agenda over the last 10 years. Certainly child survival remains a challenge in many parts of the world. But we can now move forward. So the main components of the new agenda will continue to be health, a healthy start in lives, which takes it beyond child survival. It will continue to focus on education but understanding that access without quality will not achieve that much, so quality of education becomes a focus. The exploitation of children, whether child labour or sexual exploitation or trafficking takes on more urgency today than it had in the past, and HIV/AIDS has to continue to be a matter of primary concern. These are the issues that will make up the new agenda for the 21st century. Q: What is the idea behind these types of international fora? Is part of the idea to shame governments into operating better? Is the idea to create some kind of benchmarks and to hold governments accountable? Have you found them to be effective weapons? A: I don’t think that shame is necessarily very effective. I do believe very serious review and monitoring is more important. I’m not certain it has to be through the production of these global meetings and I think it probably is time to put a hold on some of these global meetings and have a period of time of real monitoring and measurement to see whether any results are being produced. We have many indicators out there ... That is what I’d like to see over the next five years. For more details: http://www.unicef.org/specialsession/