United Nations Children's Fund

United Nations Children's Fund (formerly United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund)

Type: Private - Not-for-Profit
On the web: http://www.unicef.org

UNICEF began working to help children around the world when it was created by the United Nations in 1946. The organization strives to protect children's rights and help children who are victims of war, poverty, disasters, and exploitation. UNICEF's focus areas include child survival and development, child protection, education and gender equality, and HIV/AIDS prevention. The group is active in more than 190 countries and has offices in about 125. Its budget comes from governments and individual contributions and from the sale of products such as greeting cards.

Officers:
Executive Director: Ann M. Veneman
President: Oumar Daou

Founded: 1946
NAIC: 813212 Voluntary Health Organizations

The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) is one of the world's best-known organizations devoted to the health and welfare of children. UNICEF is headquartered in New York, and works with children in 158 countries. The group works through local offices in these countries. It also operates a European regional office in Geneva, Switzerland, a special office in Brussels, Belgium, and an Office for Japan in Tokyo. UNICEF's Supply Division, which handles most of its vaccine packing and distribution, is located in Copenhagen, Denmark. UNICEF also maintains the Innocenti Research Centre, in Florence, Italy. The Innocenti is the group's main social science research arm, helping to compile data on issues relating to children and exploring policy options relating to the financing of social programs. UNICEF is a non-profit group that receives about two-thirds of its funding from governments. The remaining one-third of its funding comes from its own fundraising activities, such as its sales of greeting cards and its "Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF" campaigns, and from donations from individuals and private groups. The group is a United Nations organization that began as a response to the plight of children in the aftermath of World War II. Its mandate gradually broadened to include ongoing support for children in all parts of the world. UNICEF has been instrumental in programs to vaccinate children against communicable diseases, and is a leader in work on prevention of HIV/AIDS. UNICEF is a strong advocate for universal education, for girls as well as boys, and the agency also works to overcome violence and discrimination against children. UNICEF responds to children in emergency situations, such as supplying food and rebuilding healthcare infrastructure in war-torn areas. UNICEF also works to promote children's health and welfare in non-emergency situations, with ongoing programs that seek to curtail child labor or advocate breastfeeding, for example. UNICEF also acts as a voice for children's issues, publishing an annual State of the World's Children and many other reports on specific problems and goals

UNICEF was founded in December 1946. World War II was over, but the devastating effects of the war years continued to be felt by people across Europe. The United Nations was itself founded in October 1945, and it had begun operating a relief organization called the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) to combat famine and disease in liberated Europe. UNRRA's initial mission was to bring relief to civilians all across Europe. The war had left millions without shelter, farming had been severely disrupted, and the population was extremely vulnerable to communicable diseases such as tuberculosis. UNRRA had existed in some form since 1943, and over the next three years it fed millions of European children and adults. By late 1946, however, the former Allies began to regroup, and as the Cold War began, Europe fell into distinct Eastern and Western zones. UNRRA was to be wound down, though its budget had not all been spent, on the tacit understanding that it was not equally welcome in all parts of Europe. However, there was still a huge need for a relief group, especially as the winter of 1946-47 threatened to become one of the worst on record.

As UNRRA disbanded, the United Nations agreed to charter a new group with a focus on the emergency needs of children in particular. Though UNICEF rose in response to World War II, the concept of children's aid had its roots in World War I. The British social reformer Eglantyne Jebb had documented the effect of that war on children, and had founded the Save the Children International Union (SCIU). SCIU believed there was no such thing as an "enemy" child, and wished to minister to children no matter what side their parents had fought on. SCIU's principles were adopted by the League of Nations in 1924 as the World Child Welfare Charter. The SCIU merged into the International Union of Child Welfare by 1946, and this group pressed the United Nations to continue to work for war-scarred children. U.S. Army film makers had also put together a 19-minute documentary, "Seeds of Destiny," which captured the wretched plight of postwar children. The film, which contained images of children begging, foraging in garbage dumps, and barely surviving in hospitals and orphanages, eventually raised $200 million for children's welfare work. It was shown at the last meeting of UNRRA's governing council, at which point the council voted to propose to the United Nations that its leftover budget be used to continue relief work for children. Thus, UNICEF came into being.

The group's first leader was Maurice Pate, an American investment banker who had worked closely with Herbert Hoover on relief efforts after World War I. Pate found children's needs after World War II to be three times greater than after World War I, and he was anxious to lead UNICEF. However, he accepted the job only if he could use the organization to help all needy children, no matter their nationality and the ex-combatant status of their governments. This was, of course, a controversial point, but Pate made clear from the start that UNICEF would put children above politics, and all would be treated equally. UNICEF brought aid to children on both sides of the civil war in Greece, for example, and brought food and medicine to children in the new country of Israel as well as to Palestinians who had been displaced.

The group's initial efforts were focused on Europe and Japan. Dr. Ludwik Rajchman, a Polish doctor and public health specialist on UNICEF's first executive board, was instrumental in hooking the group up with the Red Cross in the Scandinavian countries, and distributing from Copenhagen vaccine for tuberculosis. UNICEF organized mass tuberculosis vaccinations across the world, and by 1951 the group had vaccinated some 14 million children. Distribution of the vaccine was not simple, as it had to be kept cool and away from light, and relief workers had to travel into remote regions to reach children in the countryside. Other UNICEF projects were less glamorous but just as necessary. The group provided millions of pounds of cotton to European governments, to be made up into diapers and infant clothing. The group also provided shoes, or leather for shoes, for European children in the 1940s. Children without shoes could not attend school in cold weather, and when they went barefoot they risked tetanus and pneumonia. UNICEF distributed two million pairs of shoes and boots across Europe in the late 1940s.

Another important goal was to get milk to malnourished children after the war. Milk was difficult to transport and to keep fresh, so the group had to import dried milk, a new invention. The milk powder came mostly from the United States, Canada, and Australia. Between 1947 and 1951, UNICEF shipped 400 million pounds of milk powder to children in needy countries, reaching approximately seven million children.

While poorly nourished children needed milk, they also had other pressing dietary needs. In the immediate postwar years, millions of children suffered from rickets, a bone-softening disease caused by a lack of vitamin D. The disease was said to affect one-third of Polish children, and other countries too had epidemics of rickets. UNICEF combated rickets with donated cod liver oil, which mostly came from Canada, Norway, and New Zealand. UNICEF had shipped some 8.5 million pounds of cod liver oil, plus seven million shark liver oil capsules, by 1951.

UNICEF's charter came up for review in the United Nations in 1950. The group had already been successful in helping children in Europe and Japan, and had begun to extend into Latin America and Asia. However, the U.S. delegate to the United Nations, Eleanor Roosevelt, argued that the group was only meant to be temporary, to sustain children wracked by war, and at this point UNICEF's work could be taken over by other groups such as the World Health Organization. Roosevelt was eloquently countered by Ahmed Shah Bokhari, the delegate from Pakistan. Though Roosevelt was an esteemed figure and represented a powerful nation, Bokhari disagreed with her absolutely, and pleaded that the work of UNICEF was only beginning. Pictures of European child victims of war looked very like normal children in poor countries like Pakistan, Bokhari stated. UNICEF should not fold but continue its work with the needy children in the developing world. Roosevelt was reportedly shocked by Bokhari's presentation and felt very badly for having opposed his viewpoint. In the end, the United Nations General Assembly voted unanimously to extend UNICEF's charter for another three years. In 1953, when the issue of UNICEF's charter came up again, Roosevelt argued vociferously that the group be made permanent.

UNICEF derived its funding principally from U.N. member governments. It began fundraising on its own in 1951, with the sale of greeting cards. UNICEF director Maurice Pate was at first afraid that selling greeting cards might be too commercial for a non-profit group, and he put up his personal funds for the first run of UNICEF greeting cards, which featured a painting by a seven-year-old Czech girl. However, the group made $16,000 on its first printing of the cards, and this became a very popular fundraiser. In 1952 UNICEF asked the French painter Raoul Dufy to create a design for a UNICEF card. Dufy was the first of a series of world-renowned artists to donate designs to UNICEF. Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Salvador Dali and many other notable artists contributed artwork to UNICEF to be made into greeting cards.

Maurice Pate died suddenly in 1965. He was followed as executive director of UNICEF by Henry R. Labouisse, a New York lawyer who had helped set up the Marshall Plan in Europe after World War II and headed relief work for UNRRA in the Middle East in the 1950s. Labouisse brought UNICEF's help to children who were caught in civil wars across the globe. In the Nigerian civil war, from 1967 to 1970, UNICEF brought food to millions of starving mothers and children. Because of the intense fighting, it was impossible to bring food into the breakaway southeastern province Biafra. Labouisse met with Nigeria's leader, General Yakubu Gowon, in 1968, and pleaded for UNICEF helicopters to be allowed to land food in Biafra during the evening hours. The general promised that the night flights would not be shot down, and UNICEF was able to deliver at least 12 tons of food to children on the Biafran side.

A similar situation occurred in 1970, when East Pakistan seceded from Pakistan, becoming Bangladesh. An estimated ten million refugees escaped to India during the fighting, and UNICEF found itself with the daunting task of bringing food and medicine to the displaced people living in camps. During the Biafran crisis, UNICEF developed a special liquid food for children who were too weak from malnourishment to feed themselves. This formula, called K-Mix-2, was extremely useful in India as well.

Meanwhile, the war in Vietnam intensified. UNICEF had been giving relief to children in the south of that country since 1954. North Vietnam, however, would not accept UNICEF's aid. Labouisse was able to broker an agreement in 1973 that let UNICEF into the north. UNICEF brought needed food and medicine, and also worked to rebuild schools and hospitals. Labouisse also visited the leaders of Kampuchea in 1979, and was able to get UNICEF aid to millions of displaced people in that country. Labouisse's negotiation skills were key in maintaining UNICEF's mission to bring aid to all sides of a conflict.

Labouisse's tenure at UNICEF ended in 1979, which the United Nations declared the International Year of the Child. The International Year of the Child put a focus on children in all parts of the world. The problems of children in war-torn areas were clear, but the International Year of the Child led to new programs for less obvious troubles, such as child prostitution and drug abuse. Hundreds of new organizations came into being that year, as children's problems were explored all across the globe. The prestige of UNICEF was very high at that time. Its income rose 25 percent in 1979, to $285 million from $211 million a year earlier.

After Labouisse retired, he was succeeded by James P. Grant. Grant had a new plan for UNICEF, wanting to make it more effective for more people. Grant thought that aid such as UNICEF provided was woefully inadequate given the severity of the problems of poor nations. He hoped to both make UNICEF's contributions more helpful, and to strengthen existing social structures within communities that used UNICEF's aid. Grant came up with the phrase "silent emergency" to describe the ongoing effects of poverty on children. By this he meant that children's lives were routinely threatened in ways that didn't merit bold headlines and front-page pictures. He focused UNICEF on four basic strategies to bolster child survival. These were child growth monitoring, so that parents and health workers could detect malnutrition in very young children; breastfeeding, which was markedly better for children than infant formulas; immunization against six common diseases; and oral rehydration, a simple practice that could reverse the often lethal effects of infant diarrhea.

In UNICEF's 1982 report, The State of the World's Children, Grant advocated a global focus on these basic steps to ensure children's health. Grant met with leaders all over the world to promote the new program. UNICEF's most marked success over the 1980s was the increase in child immunization rates. In many parts of the developing world where vaccination rates had been below 10 percent, rates increased to around 50 percent by the end of the 1980s, and were at 80 percent by the mid-1990s. Other aspects of the four basic strategies took longer to implement. Though bottle-fed babies had been shown to be many times more vulnerable to malnutrition and disease in poor communities, UNICEF had only partial success in promoting breastfeeding in the 1980s. In 1990, UNICEF, in partnership with the World Health Organization, relaunched its breastfeeding campaign. UNICEF began certifying hospitals as "baby-friendly" if they complied with certain guidelines that promoted breastfeeding. Some countries, such as Mexico, made fast gains with this new program. Mexico's infant mortality rate fell by one-third between 1990 and 1994.

With its focus in the 1980s on key steps to child survival, UNICEF also developed new ways to track and measure children's health. In 1993 it began putting out a new annual report called The Progress of Nations. This was a compendium of statistics relating to child health, and it allowed for easy comparisons of countries with similar problems or similar incomes. Overall, the news was good. By 1995, UNICEF's State of the World's Children found that for 90 percent of the world's children, rates of disease and malnutrition were falling.

James Grant died in 1995, and he was succeeded by Carol Bellamy. Bellamy was a corporate lawyer, a former New York state senator, one-time president of the New York City city council, and the former director of the U.S. Peace Corps. Bellamy had a pragmatic focus, encouraging UNICEF outposts to increase their data collection so that the effects of aid programs could be better interpreted. Bellamy also cut costs and streamlined operations. As she came into UNICEF, many problems afflicting children seemed to be getting much better. Polio was close to being eradicated world-wide, due to UNICEF's long campaign to provide polio vaccine. By 2000, polio was still found only in sub-Saharan Africa and in South Asia, and UNICEF believed the disease would be conquered by 2005. However, AIDS continued to claim lives and leave children orphaned, particularly in Africa, and the 1990s saw armed conflicts in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, the Congo, and other places, continuing to put children's lives in jeopardy even when great gains had been made in fighting hunger and disease. Bellamy's motto was "survival for what?," meaning that children had to have something worthwhile to grow up into. She also stressed the development of children as an entry point into the greater development of a society as a whole.

Principal Operating Units

Supply Division; Innocenti Research Centre.

Principal Competitors

Children's Defense Fund; Save the Children; Soros Foundation.

Further Reading

Black, Maggie, Children First: The Story of UNICEF, Past and Present, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Spiegelman, Judith M., and UNICEF, We Are the Children: A Celebration of UNICEF's First 40 Years, Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986.

"The Rotary Foundation Honors UNICEF," M2 Presswire, May 23, 2000.

"UNICEF Report: UNICEF Says Eradication of Polio in Sight," Africa News Service, July 23, 1999.

— A. Woodward

With its focus on the needs and rights of the child, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) devotes as much as 80 percent of its funds to programs that can be classified under the broad umbrella of public health. Working in partnership with governments as well as health-related organizations, notably the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF is active in programs ranging from immunization and oral rehydration campaigns to water and sanitation projects, and from the fight against acute respiratory infections to the elimination of polio and micronutrient deficiencies. Its contribution to international public health, particularly for children and mothers, has been significant and extensive. Indeed, in the last two decades of the twentieth century, UNICEF, with its activist leadership, helped shape the agenda of international health.

The Evolution of Unicef

The United Nations General Assembly created the UN International Children's Emergency Fund as a temporary agency on December 11, 1946, to provide urgent relief aid to children in countries ravaged by World War II in Europe and Asia. Its assistance consisted of food, shelter, and medicine. In 1953, the General Assembly gave the fund a continuing mandate to help needy children in developing countries and dropped the words "international" and "emergency" from its name. By then, however, the acronym "UNICEF" had become so well known that the Assembly retained it.

With infant mortality as high as 150 to 200 per 1,000 live births in many parts of Asia, Latin America, and Africa, UNICEF soon turned its attention to the urgent health issues of children and mothers. Guidance for such work came from a joint WHO/UNICEF committee on health policies that involved members of the governing boards of both institutions. In recent years, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) has also joined the committee.

In the early 1950s, infectious diseases were rampant in many parts of the world, and UNICEF became heavily involved in campaigns against those diseases that could be prevented or for which there was a ready treatment. UNICEF furnished equipment and supplies to countries for mass-disease campaigns, with WHO providing the technical support. These campaigns included malaria, yaws, tuberculosis, typhus, trachoma, and leprosy. In its efforts to reduce infant mortality, UNICEF also promoted the training of traditional birth attendants and provided equipment, medicine, and transport for maternal and child health services.

The 1960s saw UNICEF working with the WHO and many governments in extending rural health services, and with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in fighting child malnutrition. Planning for the development of the "whole child," instead of a more piecemeal approach, became the basis of UNICEF's broader program thrust that opened the door for its focus on education as part of preparation for life.

Nobel Peace Prize

In 1965 UNICEF was awarded the Noble Peace Prize, thus linking its services for future generations with peace building. The Prize provided a solid base from which to build its effective role in advocacy for children.

UNICEF was the first UN body to take up the issue of family planning. Though the controversial subject was presented in the context of responsible parenthood to UNICEF's executive board in 1966, after an unprecedented and acrimonious debate the deeply divided board deferred its decision by one year, and it eventually took a relatively mild stance on the issue. As UNFPA was created in 1967, the pressure for UNICEF to take up the issue head-on was eased.

By the early 1970s, UNICEF shifted its emphasis to the provision of basic services for children (including education), while it maintained a predominance of its fund allocations to health programs. Though UNICEF changed its stance from its origin as a relief agency to that of a development organization, it continued to respond to emergencies. In 1974, in response to the global economic, food, and energy crises, UNICEF declared a child emergency and launched a special program to meet the urgent needs that existed.

Also in the 1970s, communication activities in support of programs made their appearance as a regular feature of UNICEF programs. These efforts were later broadened to include all relevant elements of society for a common objective, an approach now recognized as an effective development strategy by many development agencies and often referred to as "social mobilization."

Alma-Ata and Iyc

After two decades of development, and frustrated by the slow progress for a vast majority of the rural population, public health professionals and development specialists began looking for alternative approaches to health care. Their efforts culminated in the 1978 Alma-Ata Conference, cosponsored by WHO and UNICEF, which produced the Declaration of Alma-Ata on Primary Health Care (PHC). The declaration codified earlier efforts by health pioneers in getting health care to the rural poor, and it defined a new philosophy of health that was for the people and by the people. This represented a revolutionary redefinition of health care and involved the training and employment of lay workers to tackle specific tasks at the community level, with appropriate referrals to secondary and tertiary facilities. The declaration called for a multisectoral approach to health, based on the principles of social justice, equity, self-reliance, and the use of appropriate technology.

The year 1979 was called by the UN General Assembly the International Year of the Child (IYC), and UNICEF was designated as IYC secretariat. A network of national IYC committees carried out a broad range of country-level activities, considerably expanding UNICEF's level of political advocacy and presaging UNICEF's activism of the 1980s.

Child Survival and Development Revolution and Gobi

In 1982 UNICEF launched its Child Survival and Development Revolution (CSDR), which focused on four inexpensive interventions to reduce child deaths. The acronym "GOBI" represents the four program components of CSDR: growth monitoring to detect early signs of child malnutrition; oral rehydration to prevent death by dehydration as a consequence of diarrhea; breast-feeding to stop the unhealthy and often deadly effects of infant formula in poor communities; and immunization against six vaccine-preventable diseases (polio, measles, tuberculosis, whooping cough, tetanus, and diphtheria). Subsequently, UNICEF added food security, female education, and family planning to complement GOBI.

Initially, the WHO expressed caution because it viewed GOBI as vertical interventions, in contrast to the PHC approach, which called for a more horizontal approach that would strengthen health systems. UNICEF was able to reassure WHO officials that GOBI programs were meant to establish entry points for PHC, and the WHO became a partner in GOBI activities. It also joined UNICEF in sponsoring the Bamako Initiative, which aimed at making available essential drugs to African countries as part of PHC, but with cost-recovery and community management as key elements of the initiative.

The term "child survival" proved an effective tool to garner considerable extra resources for child health programs. GOBI programs involving broad-scale social mobilization and the participation of many nongovernmental organizations became dominant public health activities in most developing countries in the 1980s. The oral rehydration and immunization programs have saved millions of children's lives annually. Along with GOBI, UNICEF also started a global effort in health education with its "Facts for Life" health messages, in which WHO and UNESCO were also associated.

World Summit on Children

Following the initial success of GOBI, UNICEF engaged in promoting and organizing the World Summit for Children in 1990, which brought more than seventy heads of state and representatives of more than eighty member states to New York for a two-day meeting. The summit was precedent setting, as it was the largest such gathering and the first summit on social issues. It produced a declaration, a plan of action, and a set of goals to be achieved by the year 2000, most of which were in the public health domain. UNICEF followed up the summit with individual national plans of action to reach the goals, and has published an annual Progress of Nations to monitor and report on progress.

Concurrent with the summit preparation, the movement to turn the Declaration of the Rights of the Child into the convention made headway. In 1990 the General Assembly adopted the convention, and thus far all member states of the UN have signed the convention, and all but the United States and Somalia have ratified the treaty. UNICEF's current programs are now firmly set in the context of rights. In recent years, UNICEF has not only successfully promoted the convention, but has also undertaken programs in the fields of child labor and the removal of land mines.

There have been impressive gains as a result of UNICEF's contribution to various public health programs. About 7 million young lives are now saved each year as a result of immunization and oral rehydration. Polio has been eliminated from the Americas. Guinea worm cases in Africa have been reduced by 97 percent. An estimated 90 million infants worldwide are protected from a significant loss of intelligence quotient and learning ability because their families use iodized salt that stops iodine deficiency. In spite of the gains, the review of the year 2000 goals scheduled to take place in September 2001 is likely to show that the majority of the targets have not been met. HIV/AIDS (human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) has become a major killer of children in Africa. The gap between countries and within countries has continued to widen. Few countries have paid heed to the Summit For Children call for 20 percent of national development investment in the social sector and 20 percent of international development assistance in the social field.

With its role in the summit, however, UNICEF played a major role in setting the international public health agenda for the last decade of the twentieth century, and the General Assembly Special Session for Children in September 2001 is likely to influence public health activities in first decade or two of the new millennium.

UNICEF faces the twenty-first century invigorated by prospects in tackling problems that impact harshly on children in developing countries. With deepening poverty and a widening gap between the rich and poor, plus escalating violence as a result of armed conflict and civil disturbances, child health and women's health will remain major foci of UNICEF.

Malaria, immunization, and micronutrient disorders are among old problems receiving substantial new infusions of funds. HIV/AIDS programs and safe motherhood activities will also be expanded in the years to come. Given the activism of many nongovernmental organizations, including secular, professional, and service-based organizations, and the potential collaboration of the commercial sector, UNICEF's cooperation with the civil society is likely to increase in the years to come.

Funding Sources

Beginning in 1946 with a modest residue of funds from the defunct UN Relief and Rehabilitation Agency, UNICEF has grown to be a sizable development and humanitarian organization with an annual budget of around $1 billion. It operates entirely on voluntary contributions from both governmental and private sources. In addition to regular contributions, many governments also make special contributions for specific purposes, especially during emergencies. A network of thirty-seven national committees, registered as nonprofit entities in the industrialized countries, inform the public about the needs and rights of the child and raise funds to support UNICEF.

UNICEF has undertaken pioneering work with public personalities, including those in the performing arts or athletics, to generate public support for public health issues. A roster of goodwill ambassadors provides effective support in reaching specific audiences. Income from private sources includes the sale of greeting cards, the Halloween Trick for Treat for UNICEF campaign, television appeals, and special events such as concerts and sports activities. Substantial grants from private foundations, such as the ones created by Ted Turner and Bill Gates, are making private income an increasingly important resource for UNICEF.

As an operating agency of the United Nations, UNICEF is headed by an executive director, who is appointed by the Secretary General of the UN in consultation of its thirty-six-member executive board. Board members are in turn elected by the Economic and Social Council of the UN. There have only been four executive directors, all U.S. citizens, since its inception. Maurice Pate, a banker with experience in humanitarian relief, was the first. Pate steered the organization in its formative years and built its foundation. Henry R. Labouisse, a lawyer and the first foreign-aid chief for President John F. Kennedy, succeeded Pate. James P. Grant, another lawyer and president of the Overseas Development Council, followed Labouisse. Grant launched CSDR/GOBI and orchestrated the UN Summit for Children. Carol Bellamy, a lawyer and a former Director of the Peace Corps, succeeded Grant as executive director in 1995.

With a global staff of nearly 5,600, UNICEF operates from its headquarters at the United Nations in New York. There are eight regional offices—in Bangkok, Katmandu, Amman, Abidjan, Nairobi, Bogota, Tokyo, and Geneva—and 125 field offices serving 161 countries. UNICEF representatives at the country level have considerably more authority and resources than those of its sister UN agencies, but they generally serve under the leadership of the UN resident coordinator.

(SEE ALSO: Alma-Ata Declaration; Child Health Services; Infant Mortality Rate; International Development of Public Health; International Health; International Nongovernmental Organizations)

Bibliography

Black, M. (1987). The Children and the Nations. Australia: Macmillan Co.

—— (1996). Children First, The Story of UNICEF Past and Present. New York: Oxford University Press.

Keeny, S. M. (1957). Half the World's Children: A Diary of UNICEF at Work in Asia. New York: Association Press.

Speigelman, J. (1986). We Are the Children. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press.

UNICEF (1980–2000). State of the World's Children Reports. New York: Author.

— JACK CHIEH-SHENG LING

For more information on UNICEF, visit Britannica.com.

United Nations Children's Fund صندوق کودکان سازمان ملل متحد (Persian) صندوق الأمم المتحدة للطفولة (Arabic) 聯合國兒童基金會 (Chinese) Fonds des Nations unies pour l'enfance (French) Детский фонд Организация Объединённых Наций (Russian) Fondo de Naciones Unidas para la Infancia (Spanish)
UNICEF Logo
Org type	Fund
Acronyms	UNICEF
Head	Ann Veneman
Status	Active
Established	December 1946
Website	http://www.unicef.org
Parent org	ECOSOC
Wikimedia Commons	United Nations
Portal	United Nations Portal

UNICEF Flag

The United Nations Children's Fund (or UNICEF; pronounced /ˈjuː.nə.sɛf/^[1]) was created by the United Nations General Assembly on December 11, 1946, to provide emergency food and healthcare to children in countries that had been devastated by World War II. In 1953, UNICEF became a permanent part of the United Nations System and its name was shortened from the original United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund but it has continued to be known by the popular acronym based on this old name. Headquartered in New York City, UNICEF provides long-term humanitarian and developmental assistance to children and mothers in developing countries.

UNICEF relies on contributions from governments and private donors and UNICEF's total income for 2006 was $2,781,000,000. Governments contribute two thirds of the organization's resources; private groups and some 6 million individuals contribute the rest through the National Committees. UNICEF's programs emphasize developing community-level services to promote the health and well-being of children. UNICEF was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965 and the Prince of Asturias Award of Concord in 2006.

Contents 1 Structure of the organization and staff 1.1 UNICEF National Committees 2 Promotion and fundraising 2.1 Sponsorship 2.2 Trick-or-Treat UNICEF box 2.3 Art in All of Us 2.4 Corporate Partnership 3 Public criticism 4 The UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre 5 See also 6 References and notes 7 External links 7.1 Social Media 7.2 Video clips

Structure of the organization and staff

The heart of UNICEF's work is in the field, with staff in over 190 countries and territories. More than 200 country offices carry out UNICEF's mission through a unique program of cooperation developed with host governments. Seven regional offices guide their work and provide technical assistance to country offices as needed.

Overall management and administration of the organization takes place at its headquarters in New York. UNICEF's Supply Division is based in Copenhagen and serves as the primary point of distribution for such essential items as lifesaving vaccines, antiretroviral medicines for children and mothers with HIV, nutritional supplements, emergency shelters, educational supplies, and more. Guiding and monitoring all of UNICEF's work is a 36-member Executive Board which establishes policies, approves programs and oversees administrative and financial plans. The Executive Board is made up of government representatives who are elected by the United Nations Economic and Social Council, usually for three-year terms.

Following the reaching of term limits by Executive Director of UNICEF Carol Bellamy, former United States Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman became executive director of the organization in May 2005 with an agenda to increase the organization's focus on the Millennium Development Goals.

Unlike NGOs, UNICEF is an inter-governmental organization and thus is accountable to governments. This gives it unique reach and access in every country in the world, but may also sometimes hamper its ability to speak out publicly on rights violations, or to openly criticise the policies and actions of governments.

UNICEF National Committees

There are National Committees in 36 industrialized countries worldwide, each established as an independent local non-governmental organization. The National Committees serve as the public face and dedicated voice of UNICEF, raising funds from the private sector, promoting children’s rights, and securing worldwide visibility for children threatened by poverty, disasters, armed conflict, abuse and exploitation.

UNICEF is funded exclusively by voluntary contributions, and the National Committees collectively raise around one-third of UNICEF's annual income. This comes through contributions from corporations, civil society organizations and more than 6 million individual donors worldwide. They also rally many different partners – including the media, national and local government officials, NGOs, specialists such as doctors and lawyers, corporations, schools, young people and the general public – on issues related to children’s rights.

(see List of UNICEF National Committees)

Promotion and fundraising

In the United States, Canada and some other countries, UNICEF is known for its "Trick-Or-Treat for UNICEF" program in which children collect money for UNICEF from the houses they trick-or-treat on Halloween night, sometimes instead of candy. UNICEF is present in 190 countries and territories around the world. UNICEF designated 1979 as the "Year of the Child", and many celebrities including David Gordon, David Essex, Alun Davies and Cat Stevens gave a performance at a benefit concert celebrating the Year of the Child Concert in December 1979. Many people in developed countries first hear about UNICEF's work through the activities of 37 National Committees for UNICEF. These non-governmental organizations (NGO) are primarily responsible for fundraising, selling UNICEF greeting cards and products, creating private and public partnerships, advocating for children’s rights, and providing other invaluable support. The U.S. Fund for UNICEF is the oldest of the National Committees, founded in 1947.^[2] New Zealand appointed, in 2005, 18-year-old Hayley Westenra, a talented, world famous opera / pop singer as their Ambassador to UNICEF, in an effort to enlist the youth of the world in supporting UNICEF. Westenra has made several trips to visit underprivileged children in third world countries on behalf of UNICEF, in an effort to publicize their plight, and has engaged in fund-raising activities in support of the UNICEF mission, as well.

In 2009, the British retailer Tesco used “Change for Good” as advertising, which is trade marked by Unicef for charity usage but is not trademarked for commercial or retail use which prompted the agency to say "it is the first time in Unicef’s history that a commercial entity has purposely set out to capitalise on one of our campaigns and subsequently damage an income stream which several of our programmes for children are dependent on”.They went on to call on the public “who have children’s welfare at heart, to consider carefully who they support when making consumer choices”.^{[3] [4]}

Sponsorship

Recently, UNICEF has begun partnerships with world-class athletes and teams to promote the organization's work and to raise funds.

Lionel Messi wearing the shirt with the Unicef logo.

On 7 September 2006, an agreement between UNICEF and the Catalan association football club FC Barcelona was reached whereby the club would donate 0.7% of its total yearly revenue to the organization for five years. As part of the agreement, FC Barcelona will wear the UNICEF logo on the front of their shirts, which will be the first time a football club sponsored an organization rather than the other way around. It is also the first time in FC Barcelona's history that they have had another organization's name across the front of their shirts.

In January 2007, UNICEF struck a partnership with Canada's national tent pegging team. The team was officially re-flagged as "UNICEF Team Canada", its riders wear UNICEF's logo in competition, and team members promote and raise funds for UNICEF's campaign against childhood HIV-AIDS.^[5] When the team became the 2008 tent pegging world champions, UNICEF's flag was raised alongside the Canadian flag at the games, the first time in the history of international Grand Prix equestrian competition that a non-state flag has flown over the medal podium.^[6]

The Swedish club Hammarby IF followed the Spanish and Canadian lead on 14 April 2007^[7], also raising funds for UNICEF and displaying the UNICEF name on their sportswear. The Danish soccer club Brøndby IF will do likewise from the summer of 2008.

Race driver Jacques Villeneuve has occasionally placed the UNICEF logo on the #27 Bill Davis Racing pickup truck in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.

The ING Renault F1 Team in Formula One are also sponsored by UNICEF.

UNICEF recently announced a landmark partnership with Scotland's Rangers F.C. UNICEF will partner the Rangers Charity Foundation and have pledged to raise £300,000 by 2011.^[8]

Trick-or-Treat UNICEF box

Main article: Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF

Since 1950 when a group of children in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, donated $17 they received on Halloween to help post-World War II victims, the Trick-or-Treat UNICEF box has become a tradition in North America during the haunting season. These small orange boxes are handed to children at schools and at various locations (such as Hallmark Gold Crown Stores) prior to 31 October. To date, the box has collected approximately $91 million (CAD) in Canada and over $132 million (USD) in the USA.

Art in All of Us

UNICEF sponsors the Art in All of Us^[9] initiative founded and organised by Anthony Asael (Belgium) and Stephanie Rabemiafara (Madagascar). The mission of Art in All of Us is to promote creative cultural exchange throughout the UN listed countries, using universal language of Art. The AiA World Art Book Program of Art in All of Us will present in one book each and every of the 192 UN-listed countries through a single portrait of a resident, a drawing and a poem done by a local child.

Corporate Partnership

To raise money to support its Education and Literacy Programmes, UNICEF works together with companies all over the world – encompassing international as well as small- and medium-sized businesses. Since 2005, the organization is being supported by Montblanc, working closely together to help the world’s children getting better access to education.

Public criticism

Many groups, governments, and individuals have criticized UNICEF over the years for what they view as failing to meet the needs of their particular group or interest. Recent examples include criticism of its perceived failure to hold the Government of Sudan adequately accountable for the practice of slavery in southern Sudan^{[citation needed]}, its policy against the marketing of breast milk substitutes in developing world hospitals^{[citation needed]}, and its adherence to the 1990 Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has been ratified by every member state in the United Nations except for the United States (which is a signatory to the convention) and Somalia^{[citation needed]}.

UNICEF has also been criticised for having political bias by NGO Monitor, an Israeli NGO with the stated aim of monitoring other non-governmental organizations operating in the Middle East. NGO Monitor asserts that while UNICEF aims to fund only non-political organisations, it also funded "Palestinian Youth Association for Leadership and Rights Activation" (PYALARA), a student-run Palestinian NGO. NGO Monitor alleges that PYALARA has a covert political agenda justifying suicide bombings and demonising Israel.^[10]

The Catholic Church has also been critical of UNICEF, with the Vatican at times withdrawing its donations, because of reports by the American Life League and others that UNICEF has used some of those funds to finance sterilizations and abortions. ^[11][12]

A further example is the emotive issue of intercountry adoptions from Guatemala.^[13] The country has ratified the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption of 29 May 1993 with effect from 1 January 2008. UNICEF has been criticised by some interested parties for failing to support adoptions that are underway before the deadline^[14] but, once again, this fails to recognise UNICEF's status and obligations as an international organisation, rather than an NGO.

The UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre

UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre in Florence, Italy, was established in 1988 to strengthen the research capability of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and to support its advocacy for children worldwide.

The Centre, formally known as the International Child Development Centre, has as its prime objectives to improve international understanding of the issues relating to children's rights, to promote economic policies that advance the cause of children, and to help facilitate the full implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in industrialized and developing countries.

The programme for 2006–2008 was approved by UNICEF Executive Board in September 2005. It reaffirms the Centre's academic freedom and the focus of IRC's research on knowledge gaps, emerging questions and sensitive issues which are relevant to the realization of children's rights, in developing and industrialized countries. It capitalizes on IRC's role as an interface between UNICEF field experience, international experts, research networks and policy makers and is designed to strengthen the Centre's institutional collaboration with regional academic and policy institutions, pursuing the following four goals:

• Generation and communication of strategic and influential knowledge on issues affecting children and the realization of their rights;
• Knowledge exchange and brokering;
• Support to UNICEF's advocacy, policy and programme development in support of the Millennium Agenda
• Securing and strengthening the Centre's institutional and financial basis.

Three interrelated strategies will guide the achievement of these goals:

• Evidence-based analysis drawing on quantitative and qualitative information, the application of appropriate methodologies, and the development of recommendations to assess and inform advocacy and policy action.
• Enhanced partnerships with research and policy institutions and development actors, globally and at regional level, in developing and industrialized countries.
• Communication and leveraging of research findings and recommendations to support policy development and advocacy initiatives through strategic dissemination of studies and contribution to relevant events and fora.^[15]

See also

• Afghan New Beginnings Programme
• Alliance for Healthy Cities
• Facts for Life
• List of UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors
• Maurice Pate, first executive director of UNICEF
• Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, statistical monitoring program of UNICEF
• Music for UNICEF Concert
• Speak Africa
• Street children
• Unite for Children, Unite Against AIDS
• Voices of Youth

References and notes

1. ^ "UNICEF", Dictionary.com Unabridged, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/UNICEF, retrieved 2009-06-04 
2. ^ US Fund for UNICEF
3. ^ http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0725/1224251305112.html
4. ^ http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/tesco-in-clash-with-unicef-1841427.html
5. ^ UNICEF Team Canada
6. ^ [Newstrack India "International Tent Pegging"], January 14, 2008
7. ^ UNICEF, Hammarby strikes partnership (In Swedish)
8. ^ [1]
9. ^ Art in All of Us
10. ^ NGO Monitor Analysis (Vol. 1 No. 5) 11 March 2003
11. ^ The Truth About UNICEF
12. ^ UNICEF, WHO Want ' Alliance' with Church but Promote Abortion
13. ^ Guatemala's baby business
14. ^ The Guatemala 5000 Initiative
15. ^ Innocenti Research Centre

External links

United Nations portal

• UNICEF
• UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre
• Pune Street Children Project by Identity Foundation- Global volunteering initiative on Nabuur.com
• Intelligent Giving profile of UNICEF UK
• Unicef fund raising at Official FC Barcelona UK Penya
• Unicef - Breastfeeding Support Forum
• UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Femi Kuti speaks out against the suffering of Zimbabwean children
• UNICEF Child protection from violence, exploitation and abuse

Social Media

• UNICEF's YouTube channel
• UNICEF's Facebook Page
• UNICEF's Twitter Page
• UNICEF's MySpace Page

Video clips

• UNICEF's YouTube channel
• UNICEF's Daily Motion channel
• UNICEF's Blip.TV channel
• Sotna Children's TV show produced by UNICEF Egypt

Awards and achievements
Preceded by Martin Luther King, Jr.	Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 1965	Succeeded by René Cassin 1968

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Dansk (Danish)
abbr. - United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund; UNICEF

Nederlands (Dutch)
Unicef

Français (French)
abbr. - (abrév = United Nations Children's Fund) UNICEF

Deutsch (German)
abbr. - UNICEF

Ελληνική (Greek)
abbr. - Γιούνισεφ

Italiano (Italian)
U.N.I.C.E.F.

Português (Portuguese)
abbr. - UNICEF

Русский (Russian)
ЮНИСЕФ (Фонд ООН помощи детям)

Español (Spanish)
abbr. - UNICEF, Fondo de las Naciones Unidas para la Infancia

Svenska (Swedish)
abbr. - United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
联合国儿童基金会

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
abbr. - 聯合國兒童基金會

한국어 (Korean)
abbr. - United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (유니세프)

日本語 (Japanese)
abbr. - ユニセフ

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(اختصار) صندوق الامم المتحدة لصالح الولد‏

עברית (Hebrew)
abbr. - ‮יוניצף - קרן הילד של האו"ם‬

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