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Thematic Overview
1946 –1959 UNICEF - The Agency for Children
1960 –1979
The Development Decades
1980 –1989
Child Survival and Development
1990 –1999
Recognizing Children’s Rights
2000 –
Children and Millennium Development Goals
see also
UNICEF Milestones by Year
The thematic overview draws on the UNICEF pamphlet
1946-2006 Sixty Years for Children, based on the historical works about UNICEF by Maggie Black:
Children First: The
story of UNICEF past and present and
The Children and the
Nations.
UNICEF at
60: A brief look back, and ahead provides video and photo
essays.
Additional material was drawn from papers written by
Jack Charnow UNICEF’s first and long-serving Secretary of the
Executive Board.
See also
UNICEF at 40
An overview of
UNICEF's first forty years printed in UNICEF NEWS.
Aiding children of
"ex-enemy countries"
UNICEF’s initial priority was to carry on the post-war child relief
work of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration
then being liquidated. During the final meeting of UNRAA , held in
Geneva in 1946, Ludwik Rajchman, the delegate from Poland proposed
that UNRRA ’s residual resources be put to work for children through
a United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund – an
‘ICEF’. Rajchman is thus considered the founder of UNICEF.
Maurice Pate agreed to become UNICEF’s first Executive Director only
on condition that the new agency would be able to help children of 'ex-enemy countries'. UNICEF’s work in behalf of children was an
important way of helping create an atmosphere of international
solidarity transcending political and ideological boundaries. UNICEF
subsequently played a pivotal role in war-torn countries as the only
UN agency allowed to provide aid without discrimination to all
factions.
During its early years, UNICEF’s resources were devoted largely to
meeting the emergency needs of children in Europe for food, drugs
and clothing. At the peak of UNICEF operations in Europe, some 6
million children received a daily supplementary meal through 50,000
centres in 12 countries. In addition, clothing and shoes were
provided, processed from raw materials furnished by UNICEF. More
than 8 million children were vaccinated against tuberculosis and aid
was provided for various other types of health programmed. Milk
collection facilities, dairies and milk processing plants had been
destroyed or had deteriorated during the war, some were rebuilt and
new ones established with UNICEF assistance as part of the
countries’ plans to provide milk for children on a continuing basis.
Outside Europe, UNICEF began providing aid for health and child
feeding, first in China in 1948 and then to other Asian countries.
In 1949, UNICEF began extending aid, mainly for BCG
anti-tuberculosis vaccinations, to several countries in the Eastern
Mediterranean area and North Africa. Aid to Latin America for child
feeding and health projects was first approved in 1949. By the end
of 1950, UNICEF had spent more than $114 million for assistance. Of
this amount, 76 per cent had gone to Europe, 11 per cent to Asia, 10
per cent to the Eastern Mediterranean area, and 3 per cent to Latin
America.
While UN Member States had not intended to prolong UNICEF’s life
beyond the postwar emergency, they did include in its founding
resolution the phrase “for child health purposes generally.” This
caveat would later offer UNICEF a permanent role managing
large-scale efforts to control and prevent diseases affecting
children, and in October of 1953, the General Assembly extended
UNICEF’s mandate indefinitely.
Mass Disease
Campaigns
The organization's efforts quickly grew beyond short-term relief for
the 'loud emergencies' of armed conflict and natural disasters to
long-term survival and development programmes for the 'silent
emergencies' of malnutrition, deadly diseases, and eventually the
AIDS pandemic, gender inequality and child abuse, including child
trafficking, child labour and child soldiers.
This shift first occurred in the early 1950’s when UNICEF-assisted
health and nutrition projects began to be related to long-term needs
and especially the mass campaigns against endemic diseases largely
affecting children, tuberculosis, yaws, leprosy, trachoma and
malaria. These campaigns were among the first, and certainly the
most spectacular, extensions of war-related international assistance
to development concerns. While hugely successful, including the
eventual eradication of smallpox, not all the disease campaigns
could succeed based on technical advances alone: many people, and
certainly mosquitoes, do not stay in one place for significant
periods of time, both population and insect migration made malaria
and to a smaller degree, polio, impossible to completely eradicate.
Goodwill
Ambassadors
During the early years of UNICEF’s existence, raising funds and
awareness of children’s plight was of paramount importance. Many
talented individuals were drawn to UNICEF’s cause at that time,
Danny Kaye, a famous US actor and comedian, was possibly the best
known of these early advocates. Danny’s recruitment was the result
of a chance encounter with then Executive Director Maurice Pate
aboard a flight from London to New York. The plane caught fire in
mid-Atlantic and, in the hours while it made its way back to Ireland
for repairs, Maurice Pate spoke to Danny Kaye about UNICEF whereupon
Danny Kaye volunteered to work for UNICEF and became UNICEF’s
“Ambassador-at-Large”, traveling around the world. He made a
20-minute documentary film, “Assignment Children”, that was seen by
more than 100 million people making UNICEF a household name
worldwide.
Sir Peter Ustinov, Liv Ullmann and Audrey Hepburn followed in his
footsteps. Other distinguished artists have continued to contribute
their talent and time to the organization.
Current
Goodwill Ambassadors.
Declaration of the
Rights of the Child
In 1959, the United Nations General Assembly. responding to urging
by the International Union for Child Welfare, adopted a Declaration
of the Rights of the Child which affirmed in its preamble that
“mankind owes the child the best it has to give.” Its predecessors
were a 1923 Declaration of the International Union for Child Welfare
and a 1924 Geneva Declaration adopted by the League of Nations.
Among the principles in the 1959 Declaration, which included,
directly or indirectly, all the earlier provisions, were that the
child should grow and develop in health and have the right to
adequate nutrition, housing, recreation, medical services,
education, and moral and material security. The Declaration stated
that “The child shall in all circumstances be among the first to
receive protection and relief."
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