Addis Ababa — Viable national planning and increased funding is vital to support sub-Saharan Africa's 12 million orphans, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said here Friday ahead of the forthcoming world leaders summit in New York.

In a statement issued in Nairobi, the UN agency said more support needs to be generated for the National Plans of Action prepared by more than 16 countries in Africa.

Ten or so other countries are in the preparation stage with their plans.

"As world leaders gather later this month in New York to review progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), protecting vulnerable children should take center stage," UNICEF said.

The leaders will be meeting to review the progress made in implementing the eight poverty eradication goals set by world leaders during the landmark 2000 Millennium Summit.

The National Plans of Action identify ways to get and keep children in school and ensure shelter and access to health care for children in countries where long, severe AIDS epidemics, malaria and deadly conflicts have impoverished and orphaned so many.

UNICEF said the action promises the coordinated and comprehensive approach necessary to meeting the challenges Africa faces in providing for its children and reversing the economic and social declines precipitated by HIV/AIDS, conflict and poverty.

By 2003, the UN agency said 15 million children under 18 had been orphaned by HIV/AIDS worldwide - about 12 million of these live in sub-Saharan Africa, and this number is expected to rise to more than 18 million by 2010.

"A staggering one in five children in Zimbabwe is now an orphan.In Rwanda, more than 100,000 households are headed by children alone, each one a painful and constant reminder of the former genocide and the ongoing AIDS pandemic," it said.

In Botswana, UNICEF said some 8,660 households are run by children while in Lesotho, 75 per cent of all children who are orphaned, some 143,000, lost their parents to AIDS.

UNICEF Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa, Per Engebak called for strong support for the National Plans.

"The onslaught of HIV has overloaded the caring capacity of communities and families and therefore the coordinated response that National Plans of Action offer is vital," said Engebak.

He said among the many losses children living without parents endure is the loss of the opportunity to attend school.

"Unable to pay school fees and struggling to survive, they end up in dangerous and exploitative labour, including commercial sexual exploitation, at high risk of HIV infection themselves," said the UNICEF official.

UNICEF said it was working with governments to leverage resources to get vulnerable children, including those living in child-headed households, back into school.

"These plans have earned international community backing but funds are still needed to implement them," Engebak said.

"Estimates are that 1 billion US dollars a year (roughly 300 dollars per child) is needed to provide basic schooling, food, clothes and health care for children orphaned by AIDS," he added.