New York — The first ever UN summit devoted to children is under way in New York, this week. The meeting was originally scheduled for September 2001 but the events of that month forced a postponement. Around 6,000 people are participating in the meeting, including nearly 60 heads of state and an array of celebrities, politicians, leading figures from the NGO world, and leaders from business, religion, the arts and academia. The idea is that delegates should face up to the devastating problems faced by most of the world's children and to agree on how to achieve change. By the end of the meeting, the 180 national delegations are expected to adopt a document - "A World Fit for Children' - containing goals on child heath, education and protection, and a plan of action to attain them in the coming decade. Akwe Amosu interviewed Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of Unicef, which has organised the summit, about the state of the campaign to improve children's lives.
The world summit meeting in 1990 pledged major advances for children. Were they achieved?
Well if one looks at the last 12 years, from the World Summit when leaders came together and set a series of goals for children largely in the health and education area, it's a mixed picture.
But I think it's fair to say most of the indicators have not improved and in some cases they have deteriorated in Africa. There are some slight exceptions here and there. Botswana is doing better, it is certainly hit very badly by HIV/Aids. And then other countries, while there was some improvement, are now hit by the double or triple whammy of poverty, war, and Aids: so as a continent, Africa is seeing the least improvement and particularly sub-Saharan Africa.
Why is that?
I think the reason there hasn't been any more improvement in sub-Saharan Africa is due to many issues, some of which apply in many other parts of the world. There's no question that there's a lot of words spoken about children, a lot of promises made about children and not a lot of action and that is certainly not limited to Africa. One sees that in the richest countries to the poorest countries.
But, at least from our view, there are a number of factors. Clearly the impact of poverty generally, abject poverty; it isn't total numbers of people but the percentage of people living with under two dollars a day as a family is just quite extraordinary, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. The situation for children in North Africa is somewhat better than in sub-Saharan Africa.
Secondly, the pandemic of HIV is a global issue and not only an African issue but has fallen most on Africa at this point. It has been estimated that, of the 16,000 new people infected with HIV every day, half of them are under the age of 23. Not only are children affected by losing parents and therefore becoming orphans or by being infected themselves, there's the terrible myth that if you have sex with a virgin you will cure yourself. More and more young girls are infected.
But Aids affects the basic services they need. For example, there are more teachers dying in Zambia each year than they are able to train. Aids was with us 10 years ago when the World Summit was held, but not reflected in that document because nobody understood, I think, the impact.
Another issue is the issue of war, conflict. War has been around forever but the face of war has virtually changed in the last quarter of the 20th century. People may think about people marching around in uniforms, but the face of war is a civilian face.
The victims of war are largely civilian, women and children. Some are killed, but some are separated from their families. They are handicapped by land mines. They are displaced from their communities, so what little livelihood they had, whatever family unit they had is lost - so another deteriorating factor. And of course, gender still plays a role, so the African girl is still falling behind even the young African boys.
Listening to you identifying these devastating problems so clearly, I wonder if there's enough plain speaking out there by others? I wonder whether, outside of UNICEF, there's enough willingness to confront the facts?
Well we see encouraging signs as well, I think it's important to point out. A little bit more than three years ago, I attended an Africa-wide meeting on HIV/Aids that was held in Lusaka; not one single African Head of State was there.
Now we see in the leadership the President of Uganda, the President of Nigeria, and certainly others - I don't want to limit it - Senegal, and the President of Botswana, we see Heads of State all over Africa now having at least crashed through that conspiracy of silence. You've got to do that first if you're going to take on HIV/Aids. It doesn't solve it but as long as you park it away off somewhere in a health department and pretend it only affects strange people then you're not going to deal with it.
I think we are encouraged by the leadership that is coming out of Africa today, in terms of Nepad [New Partnership for Africa's Development]. It's still to be foreseen what effect it will have but certainly in really saying 'we African leaders are going to try and take more control over our lives and the lives of our people'.
So that covers the official response; what is the contribution of civil society and how important is it?
Well I think the civil society role is very important. They are there reminding us that many of these countries are also involved in conflicts; they are poor countries yet they can find the money for armaments but can't find the money to invest in children's services. And young people themselves are very active. I recently participated in a meeting on young girl's education in Uganda, but there were girls and boys from all over Africa, extraordinarily talented people.
I think we all have to be honest with the fact that the challenges are great, but there are signs, certainly, of government leadership, of private sector leadership. Beyond that also, while Africa has to lead on behalf of Africa, there has to be sensitivity on the part of the rest of the globe. I mean you also know that the last decade has seen a decrease in development assistance from most countries who have the resources, with the exception of the Nordic countries. For all the talk about the fair policy of trade around the world, we haven't seen much in the way of a fair policy on trade.
That's why I'm wondering whether, in the summit this week, you're going to see the poorer countries standing up and saying to the American government, for example, protectionism is a major cause of poverty in our countries and you must do something about it? Or will everybody be polite and avoid confrontation?
I suspect there'll be more pleasantness than non-pleasantness at this meeting. On the other hand, there are so many young people who are delegates, who will reflect their countries' views. I find young people to be just refreshingly honest in their comments sometimes and sometimes they get right to the truth and the facts, even though they're not trying necessarily to be disagreeable to anybody.
I would also say, and it's very important, this is a UN meeting. It's actually the first ever UN special session on children but, by being a UN meeting, it does have some constraints in terms of being a document that is negotiated and agreed upon by all the countries.
But the lead-up to this meeting, and the regional meetings, the one for Africa being held in Cairo and events in the Americas and Asia and Europe, produced very good and, frankly, stronger declarations. Those agreements will inform the follow-up to this meeting as well. But again, one meeting alone isn't going to solve all of the problems.
It is unfortunate in my view, to some extent, that at the recent meeting in Monterrey on financing for development, there was very little reference to children and women. This meeting was for people who talk about trade. But, if you want to finance development you have to understand where's your focus in development. The people who are poor today, the people who hold back development unless they have some ability to advance, are women and children; yet that hadn't gotten on the agenda, except for the few of us who went there and spoke about women and children and had people look at us like we were crazy.
But you're not going to have development, you're not going to have sustainable economies that are healthy unless you have healthy people and by that we're talking healthy in body and mind. Investing in kids isn't the only way, but certainly it is one of the key ways to have a return.
I'm getting a feeling that there's a much more political approach being used these days, not just in relation to children's rights but on a whole range of things to do with Africa. Nepad's language, to some extent, has reinforced that impression; but I saw in the Summit's draft declaration language saying that "children's rights were an effective rallying point" and indeed, the whole concept of a Global Movement for Children sounds more like a campaigning organization than a charity body. That 'activist' edge seems to be the way Mandela and Graca Machel and other advocates have been leading. Is that a fair observation?
I hope things are becoming more political and there's nothing wrong with that. There needs to be advocacy. All of these meetings are wonderful in that they come up with an agreement and a plan and everyone says what a wonderful plan and then they go back, and the question is whether anything happens to the plan.
What we're trying to do with this meeting - but it's also part of having more general advocacy - is to say that promises without action do very little. So we're trying to focus on leadership here. Government leadership is very important - it's a government meeting here in New York - but religious leadership, media leadership, youth leadership, citizens like Mandela, citizens that are known, private sector leadership, people need to push.
That's, again, a good reason, in our view, for having so many young people here because they go back through their different groups - most of them come from some kind of group - and they might have an opportunity to continue to remind their home country and continue to remind their leaders of what kind of promises they made.
And do you feel good about seeing so many of them forming political organizations? You see, for example, a youth party in Sierra Leone that is campaigning around the elections, making very strong points, political points. Is this what you're talking about?
I would support young people being active. Being active in support of their communities, however, they would have to have the means to do it. It's not for us to say, "Go out and form political parties in order to improve the access to water in your communities," but the fact is, it's inherent to the convention of the rights of the child to some degree; it recognizes the young person as a human being, not just the focus of charity, but as a human being who breathes, who talks, who has ideas that one ought to look into.
It doesn't mean every idea should be accepted, that everything the child says, you have to immediately say "yes". But it means that young people have a contribution to make, so the more that occurs, the more they will be empowered to get what they deserve, which is at least basic education, at least basic health.
The reason I asked the question is that there is a whole constituency that believes that children do get ignored because there is no downside to ignoring them. They're not a powerful constituency. But if you have 50-60,000 street children in Addis Ababa and they decide to get organised on their own behalf, then perhaps people are going to sit up and take notice.
We hope people will sit up and take notice. Again you always hear that children don't vote so therefore they are not counted. Well I've spent a little of my life in politics as an elected official, I'll tell you, yes, that young child over there may not be voting next year but, as a politician, I look at that child and I think, hmm, they're going to be voting pretty soon. It's not that I'm trying to get their vote, but it's very short-sighted of leaders in developing countries, where the majority of the population by far is young, not to understand that they are a very important block.
But is it desirable that children should have to take political responsibility and campaign for their rights?
We all know the best situation is for a young person to grow up in a family environment that is loving. You don't have to be super-rich, you just need a basic, loving, non-violent environment. We're not saying every young person should go out and mobilize and join political groups; but the right of a young person to share their views, to join or support or lead a group is something at least that should be available. Then it's up to that young person to choose. They have to decide.
I don't think we should demand that young people grow up too quickly. On the other hand we shouldn't hold young people back from expressing themselves and engaging in activity that doesn't threaten other people, but activity that gives them an opportunity to go out and advocate.
And do you see that happening? Can you give me examples of places it is actually working and helping?
I think it's happening a little but increasingly in some places, primarily brought about by the fact that we live in a world of instant communication. Even in the poorest places, people have an opportunity to know a little bit more about what's going on in the world. Take the children's peace movement in Colombia; needless to say we don't have peace yet but it probably is the most widespread peace-focused activity in all of Colombia, which is a country that is really in terrible disarray as a result of the fighting that has gone on for so many years.
You can also see it in the extent to which more young people right now are actually participating in things like youth parliaments. Sometimes these are the children who have excelled but at least it's an opportunity.
We see it in greater dialogue. I'm even told that at the Children's Forum in New York this week where the children are running their own show, the kids from the Middle East, including the Israelis, wanted to see if they could get together to talk to each other. Great; that's not going to solve everything, but at least they want to do that, as contrasted with the situation across town where you have people in different corners.
I think we saw it very much in the "Say Yes" campaign, which was a campaign that came along with the UN's special session on children. There were 10 principles, all in support of children so it was hard to disagree with any of them; and there was an attempt to get people to vote on what they thought what the most important of the 10 was.
At the last count, over 94 million people around the world - and a majority of them young people - have cast their ballot. That has to carry a little bit of weight, saying that 'hey, there's a constituency and not just a voting constituency, but a constituency that wants to be heard, that wants to share its views.'
But I imagine you would say, unless governments seriously get to grips with dealing with the problems that promote and provoke poverty and problems for kids, there isn't going to be an improvement. Is that putting it too strongly?.
No, we'd start immediately with governments. I mean governments are the center. They've got to lead. Government are no longer the only leaders but if the government and the government leadership aren't there then it will fail. What we're saying is that the breadth of leadership is broader these days and has to be recognized, from the private sector to civil society, but it has to start from the center and the center has to be the government. That's why this global meeting of government representatives on children is key.
What's your message to the cynics who say "What is the point of these meetings? They've spent millions of dollars - just imagine what it's costing to get 60 Heads of State together - and they're going to make this wonderful declaration, nothing that anyone could disagree with and then they're all going to go home and things are not going to change." What do you say to that?
First of all, I tell them that, even though this meeting is taking place about nine months after it was supposed to, we didn't exceed our budget. So we really have tried to be tight-fisted about this thing, but it is costing money. There is no question about it.
And sometimes you might say, well, wouldn't it be better if that money were put towards a program? It would if this was happening every year. But it is appropriate every so often - and I don't think it should be more than once every 10 years at the most - to stop for a moment and take stock and look at what we've learned. What works, what doesn't work, try to be as honest as possible.
That's why the material the secretary general's report says; "You know what? Congratulations to 60 of the countries out there, you've achieved that goal of reducing under 5 mortality by a third and a 100 of you reduced it by a fifth, but 15 of you went backwards."
So I'm not a supporter of global meetings every other month, but I do believe there is room to take stock at intervals, to really look at what we've learned and how we can be stronger and how we carry out our work.
What do you think might be the consequences of not succeeding at reversing the impact of children's problems, looking at the level of HIV infections, for example? Obviously it would mean more suffering, but are there consequences that you can foresee for the security of the planet or the stability of societies, in having such huge numbers of orphans, such huge numbers of uneducated children, the number of kids bearing arms.?
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Even if, from today, there wasn't another new case of HIV/Aids in Africa the impact of Aids will be felt dramatically for years to come because you are talking about 13 million Aids orphans around the world, the majority in Africa. So it has devastating consequences. Not just for the family, but we know that the traditional extended family is being stretched beyond the limit. Not just consequences for the family, but for the community, for new institutions - not just orphanages but new ways for the community to cope are going to have to be found.
The child who loses parents to Aids is very often rejected by the community, an outcast of the community because it's assumed that person is also infected. There's no basis for that assumption. In most cases that person is not infected and yet that person is affected and becomes a disenchanted person.
So you have a part of the world that's already suffering under poverty and war and Aids and you are creating new generations of people who are outcasts, who will then be potentially violent or engage in behavior that really is not productive behavior for society.
Then you have the fact that HIV/Aids is cutting across the whole spectrum of human beings in Africa. Sometimes in my country, the United States, we think that Aids is just limited to the male gay community and some drug users, but that's not so generally, and certainly that's not so in Africa.
In Africa, it's the health worker, it's the civil servant, it's the teacher, it's the truck driver, it's the mother... and so you are destabilizing whole societies and, in fact, you are creating security risks. It took a while to convince the Security Council of the UN to have a hearing on HIV/Aids. They said, "What does this have to do with us? This belongs in the health area." But once it got to the Security Council, they understood that HIV/Aids has the potential to destabilize whole societies, therefore whole countries and potentially whole regions of the world; and what could be more a global security matter then that?
Are you getting to the people who you think are responsible, and holding their feet to the fire? Do you feel, at a personal level, that's it difficult to make contact with the people who can really make a difference?
Well, I'm feeling more heartened with the Aids issue in Africa now, because we are beginning to see real leadership; but the fact is, there is still too little real investment, even modest investment, by poor countries into the children and that's what we hope, in part, this meeting will do.
And that's not only Africa, but certainly it's got to start with Africa, because conditions continue to be so poor for children. We think there are a number of ways to bring that about. I mean part of the reason we are passionate advocates, in Unicef, of girls education is that we believe you're never going to get meaningful development until you have the empowerment of women in their societies and you can't have that if girls don't get an education.
So sometimes we approach things directly, such as saying, "Mr. President you're saying you don't have investment for children but you're involved in war;" and sometimes we approach it by a different route that we think can have as much impact as a direct route, such as doing everything we possibly can do to support girls going to school, as well as boys.
So what makes you feel optimistic?
The kids, the kids, the kids, the kids. And not just the kids who are here for the special session. If you go around the world these days and talk to kids, they're the people in their communities who are actually still the most optimistic, even in the most difficult of circumstances. So for me, the closest thing to the silver bullet that will help them is that they get an education.
I think that the world community has to have its feet held to the fire on the commitment that all kids get a basic, good education and that all kids are in school by the year 2015. And I mean the feet of the president of the richest country in the world and the feet of the president of the poorest country in the world, because this isn't just one-sided. The resources have to be there, but the political commitment has to be there too.
