UNICEF news Issue 12.11 /OSA

The articles in Ihis issue have been written by John Balcomb. based on the forthcoming hook on Uniceft history, 71if Chililrt-n and the Nation*.. by Maggie Black.

Editor Maggie Black Contributing Editor John Balcnmb Designer Jtami Atjittuiro Production Supervisi>r Peter Dm-itl Production Manager Dee Fconi-Kelcev Production Assistant Susan Kaxxirer Photo Researcher Lily Siitmaxen Mtuireaux Cover drawing Asia, age 12 (} from Tree of Life, Rtitltlti Banien. Sweden

Anick's appearing in Unicef Neuy may be reproduced elsewhere provided thai credit is given ti> UnicefNtm,

Articles do not necessarily relleci the views of the Children's Fund.

UracefNfWS is published by Unieefs Division of Communication and Information. To receive the magazine, please write tor details lo your nearesl Unicef National Committee or Field Office (see back cover fur addresses).

Copies of Unicef photos can be obtained from Llnicefs Photo and Design Unit in . United Nations Children's Fund New York, N.Y. 10017 Table of Contents Unicef at 40

I Introduction There is a phrase in English which has no equivalent in any other Unicefat 40 language. It is: "to be kind". by V. Tarzie Vittachi This phrase captures the spirit which has pervaded Unicef through 40 years, both in its feelings towards the children of the world, and in the 3 Chapter one: 1946 personalities of many of the men and women who have served it. This A glass of milk for six million children in Europe issue of Unicef News is about the sum of their achievements. 6 Inset "To be kind" means : "to treat like kin". This is the basic tenet on which Out of the rubble: Poland all great religions were founded, most clearly exemplified by the Buddha's Compassion and the Christ's Love. 7 Chapter two: 1950 "To be kind" is what we admire in the nature of many of the sacral per- A fight in the General Assembly sonalities of history - Sanghamitta, the woman who followed Gautama on 10 Inset On both sides: Unicef the Eightfold Path of tolerance, Saint Francis of Assisi who treated birds in China 1948-49 and beasts as kin; Tolstoy who shared the fruit of his broadacres with his family's serfs; Gandhi who read excerpts from the Koran at his Hindu 11 Chapter three: 1956 prayer meetings. The onslaught against disease "To be kind" is Eglantyne Jebb of England, who said that she had no 14 Inset enemies below the age of 11; Simone Weil of who said, simply, that Unicef and the dairies there is no reason to share a meal with a hungry man or woman or child 16 Chapter four: 1961 except thai we are human; Martin Luther King who dreamed of one Hie whole child America, black and white; Mother Teresa, who has devoted her life to 18 Insei caring for the destitute and dying. The population factor In our heart of hearts, all of us - politicians, businessmen, trade unionists, physicians, teachers, journalists, novelists, diplomats, 20 Chapter five: 1965 bureaucrats - acknowledge our debt to those lights of humanity. .4 helping hand 24 Inset We all know that it is our duty to protect the weak from the terrible Emergencies: helping on both sides pollution of poverty and that children are the most vulnerable of beings. Children, therefore, need to be in the forefront of our human 26 Chapter six: 1970 concerns, first on our public and private agendas. Water: the spring of life For 40 years, Unicef and its partners everywhere have tried to place 28 Insei them there. But in spite of all the protestations, children are not yet where Education beyond the classroom they should be. Leaders declaim in public that "children are our most 30 Chapter seven: 1975 precious resource"; but they do nothing to put the interests of children at The search for alternatives the top of their budgets. Sadly, in many countries, health, food, education, 32 Inset the things children need, are last, not first, on the list of priorities. Food and nutrition: the most basic At Unicef, we and our many partners in governments, the UN family, need of ah" Unicef National Committees, non-governmental organizations, and men and women of goodwill everywhere, must redouble our efforts. After 40 35 Chapter eight: 1979 The Year of the Child years, the child still has something to ask of us. 36 Inset In the 15 years remaining in this century, can we bring that inner aware- The Kampuchea crisis ness of the truth - that the care of children is the world's primary duty to humanity - to the surface of attention? Can we break the habit of neglect 39 Chapter nine: 1985 and put in its place an ethos of caring? Towards a child survival revolution Can we really be "kind"? 40 Inset Shots of a peaceful kind V. Tarzie Vittachi 42 Inset A future for Africa's children? Deputy Executive Director for External Relations

Unicef News ICEF 355

UnicefNews V Chapter One: 1946 to the eastern countries, where the devasta- tion had been greatest. Will Clayton, the us delegate, told other members of the UNRRA Council in August that "the gravy train has gone around for the last time". UNRRA was A glass of milk to wind up its operations by the end of 1946. International relief under "impartial" UN auspices, it seemed, was one of the first vic- tims of the Cold War. Infuture, us Marshall for six million children Plan aid would be the principal motor of reconstruction in western and southern Europe. in Europe There were those, however, who felt that, at least forchlldren, international relief must go on. One of the powerful figures who spoke out for children was former us Presi- In the aftermath of World War //, dent , who had acquired an Unicefcame into being to feed the children. international reputation in as administrator of humanitarian relief to the people of Belgium. After World War II. when famine threatened parts of Europe,

ICEF 2B08 President Truman asked Hoover to under- the child - burns, starvation, loss of par- take a survey mission throughout the world ents, vulnerability to any and every disease. and advise him on relief needs. Hoover, then Among the children in bombed-out cities all 73 years old, returned in mid-1946. calling over Europe were those who would some for an all-out campaign against famine, with day be (heir countries'leaders. If the world the needs of children getting top consid- ignored their plight and only toughness eration. "From the Russian frontier to the and cunning counted toward their survival, Channel." he warned the world, "there are leaders would one day arise from their ranks today 20 millions of children not only badly who would commit the crimes against hu- undernourished but steadily developing manity for which millions had recently died. tuberculosis, rickets, anaemia, and other "Seeds of Destiny" was produced to gain diseases of subnormal feeding. If Europe is support for UNRRA, the United Nations to have a future, something must be done Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. about these children." UNRRA had been established in 1943, two years before the birth of the United Nations The "fathers" of Unicef itself, when the term "united nations" was still used to describe the allies fighting the Herbert Hoover has been described as the Axis powers. As the allied armies re-con- father of Unicef. but while he helped cre- quered Europe in 1944 and 1945, UNRRA ate a climate of support fora UN children's found itself engaged in the largest and most fund and actively promoted it among his complex relief effort ever mounted. At the friends in Washington and diplomatic cir- height of its operations UNRRA employed cles, a very different figure tirelessly pur- 25,000 people. From 1944 to 1946 it dis- sued the idea at the United Nations and bursed $4.5 billion in aid, mostly provided effectively lobbied for its adoption, This Children benefited from milk and food by the . Before Europe's har- was Ludwik Rajchman. Poland's delegate supplements received in their countries. vests recovered. UNRRA supplies of fats to UNRRA and former head of the League of and cereals kept millions of people alive. Nations' Health Section. Seeds, fertilizers and agricultural machin- While with the League, Rajchman gained ery arrived to restore food production. Raw a reputation as one of the world's leading Late in 1945 David Miller, a young film- materials and tools helped local industries public health specialists, and during the maker serving in the us Army Signal Corps, revive. 1930s he served for some lime as head of a shot a film in the devastated cities of By 1946, however, it became clear that League of Nations medical team in China. Europe called "Seeds of Destiny". UNRRA could not survive the widening rift When in 1946 the principal contributor to "Seeds of Destiny", which was to win an between the wartime allies. While most UNRRA, the us, took a firm stand against Academy Award, had a clear political mes- UNRRA aid was coming from the USA, most UNRRA'S continuation, Rajchman proposed sage. Modern warfare inflicts atrocities on of it within Europe by that time was going that an effort for children alone, consisting

Unicef News UNICEF 1394/60 UPUBETTMANN NEWSPHOTOS An inspired choice

The choice of Pate to head Unicef was to prove inspired, not only because of his dis- tinguished record in humanitarian relief, but because as a life-long Republican and pro- tege of Hoover, he could enlist the support of conservatives as well as liberals in the United States. Pate was determined that Unicef should rise above international politics in every way, and while his ap- pointment was under discussion wrote to a colleague:

**/t minor item in the news...is the establishment of the International Children's Fund under the U.N. I have Ludwik Rajchman, Poland's delegate to Former us President Herbert Hoover been asked to fake an active pun in it, to UNRRA and former head of the League of visited war-font Warsaw during a world which I agreed on one condition - Nations' Health Section. survey to assess relief needs. namely that it include all children of ex-enemy countries: Japanese, Finnish, Austrian. Italian and German. JJ of food and medical assistance, continue world resting on the coming generations, To secure funds to enable Unicef to carry under UN auspices. He proposed that what- the problem of caring for children is out its relief mission. Pate turned first to ever was lei'i as UNRRA was liquidated international in scope and its solution the USA , almost the only country at the time should help finance this operation. must be found on an international with plentiful resources available. Early At first this modest proposal was not basis. }^ in 1947 he wrote to General George C. greeted with any great enthusiasm, but Marshall, us Secretary of State, and set out several showings of David Miller's film, The mandate the General Assembly gave Unicef's immediate need for enough money "Seeds of Destiny", helped turn the tide. Unicef emphasi/cd Unicef's non-political to provide "a glass of milk and some fat to With the backing of Philip Noel-Baker, nature, specifying that all assistance should be spread on bread for six million children." the British delegate, and former Mayor of be given "on the basis of need, without dis- In May the us Congress voted $40 million , Fiorello LaGuardia, now crimination because of race, creed, nation- - most of this to be released on a generous L-NRRAS chief, the idea gradually gained ality, status, or political belief. Adminis- "matching" basis as other governments con- acceptance. Eventually, after persistent tration of the Children's Fund was to be tributed. Australia. Canada. New Zealand shepherding by Rajchman and other sup- carried out by an Executive Director and Switzerland were the other principal porters through various intermediate stages, according to policies determined by an contributors, to be joined by a fast- the proposal reached the General Assembly Executive Board representing both donor recovering France in 1950. Altogether, by of the UN in December. On December 11. and recipient countries. Poland was one of the end of 1950 contributions and pledges 1946. the Assembly unanimously adopted the first countries represented on the Board, to Unicef had amounted to $119 million. a resolution creating the United Nations and Rajchman. who was named the Polish UNRRA'S residual assets, all that Pate had to International Children's Emergency Fund: delegate, was elected chairman. count on at first, had come to $32.3 million. Unicef. The report recommending this step The man chosen to be Unicef's first The situation in Europe was still very contained an eloquent statement of the need Executive Director was Maurice Pate, an critical when Unicef began to ship milk and not only of a special effort for the relief of American businessman from , other relief cargoes from us ports. Most children, but of an international effort: who, as a young Princeton graduate, had countries had well-organized food distribu- worked for Hoover in Belgium during tion systems, including priority rations for "• The children of Europe and China World Warl. After the war. Pate had stayed mothers and children, but national supplies were not only deprived of food for on in Poland for 13 years as a representa- were so short that millions of children were several cruel years but lived in a state of tive of various us financial and business underfed. Tuberculosis had reached near constant terror, witness to massacres of interests. Pate had accompanied Hoover on epidemic proportions among children and the civilians, to horrors of scientific his mission to Europe in early 1946. Pro- adolescents, while war had destroyed hos- warfare and exposed to progressive foundly shocked by the plight of children pitals, medical equipment and supplies. lowering of standards of social conduct. in Poland and other countries, he became Unicef's first shipments began to arrive in The urgent problem facing the United a natural ally in Rajchman's behind-the- the autumn of 1947. Within less than a year. Nations is how to ensure the survival of scenes efforts to gain support for a UN emer- Uniccl food supplements were going to four these children... With the hope of the gency fund for children. million children in 12 countries. By eerly

Unicef News 1950. their number had increased to 6 mil- dominated, it was because their needs were services for children were gaining strength, lion. Meanwhile, to boost the amount of the greatest. partly because of east-west tensions. By late milk available to children, Unicef was also Even though Unicef s immediate task 1950. Unicef s attention had already shifted helping certain countries to rehabilitate their was relief, its objective was to strengthen to the less-developed countries of Asia, the dairy indutries. Cargoes of raw materials permanent child health and welfare pro- Middle East, and Latin America. for ihe manufacture of clothing and shoes grammes by enhancing countries' own Speaking at a National Committee collo- were distributed. In a joint programme run capacities. Unicef clearly recognized thai quium in Warsaw in 1985, as Unicef s 40th by the Scandinavian Red Cross Societies, it was the relevant national ministries and anniversary approached, Charles Egger, a Unicef helped to introduce mass testing and their officials who bore the ultimate respon- Swiss national who served for many years vaccination campaigns against tuberculosis. sibility for the successes or failures of pro- as a senior Unicef official, looked back at grammes. This was to be a guiding principle the early years. "When one recalls the fun- An enduring contribution of Unicef s co-operation with countries damental division among the allied powers around the world in the years to come. that exploded so vehemently in the summer From 1947 through 1950 Unicef gave a By the end of 1950 the European emer- of 1946 on the question of continued support total of $87.6 million in assistance to 13 gency was virtually over. Very quickly touNRRA."hetold his listeners, "it must be European countries. Eight of these coun- - sometimes within a year or two - longer seen as a real miracle thai an agreement was tries were in Eastern Europe, among whom range programmes, such as those to in- reached to continue limited assistance to Poland (see inset) was the largest aid crease national milk supplies and to mothers and children in war-stricken coun- recipient, followed closely by Yugoslavia. strenglhen health services had grown out tries." No one could have then foreseen what Italy, Germany. Austria, France and Greece of emergency efforts. Except in Yugoslavia, would become of that agreement, and the rounded out the list. If children of Eastern Unicef s co-operation in most Eastern organization it created - Unicef- in the European and "ex-enemy" countries pre- European countries came to an end just as years ahead. D

UNITED NATIONS ARCHIVES

Refugees returning to Poland traveled in box-car trains, provided by UNRRA.

"_S Unicef News UN PHOTO 20970

aid. Milk sterilization and milk drying Out of the rubble: Poland equipment were needed. Unicef pro- vided equipment and engineering ad- In no European country was the post- to a layette if she needed one. vice for five new milk plants in Poland, war condition of children more serious Two of the programmes undertaken providing over 600,(XX) Polish children than in Poland. Two and a halt" years in Poland and other European countries withadailydrinkofmilk. Unicefshelp after its liberation from German occu- during these years foreshadowed at a critical phase of dairy development pation, the country was still hungry, Unicef's long-range assistance in other is still remembered at the Central Un- and children still ran barefoot through parts of the world: BCG vaccination and ion of Dairy Cooperatives in Warsaw. the rubble. Poland had suffered fright- milk conservation. As the decade ended, Unicef's co- ful devastation: more than 140.000 BCG stands for Bacillus Calrnerie- operation was moving toward longer- children had become orphans; thou- Guerin, named after two French scien- range aid for maternal and child health sands were injured or mutilated. tists who developed the serum early in services. But mounting east-west ten- linkers Warsaw office was one of the century. In some parts of Poland the sion was making it more difficult to the earliest of the 13 established in Eu- number of children dying from tuber- work in a harmonious spirit in eastern rope, and by October 1947 the first of culosis had quadrupled in seven years. Europe. By early 1950, Unicef was the many food shipments had arrived in the When in 1948 Unicef joined forces with only international organziation still Baltic port of Gdynia: 450 tons of pow- the Danish and other Scandinavian Red with a mission on Polish soil, and with dered milk, At the programme's height, Cross Societies in a large-scale BCG the completion of outstanding deliv- Unicef provided extra rations for one vaccination enterprise, Poland was one eries of health centre and dairy equip- million children in day nurseries, of the first countries to ask for help. ment. Unicef too closed its office. schools, children's homes, and hospi- More than 300 Polish medical staff From 1947 through 1950. Unicef had tals. Authority for the programme joined 60 Scandinavian doctors and provided more than $16.5 million to came from the government, whose nurses to carry out the campaign. By programmes for children in Poland, officials carried it out. part December 1949, 5.5 million Polish making that country the largest recip- was to make sure that the right supplies children had been tuberculin tested to ient of its aid in Europe, followed by were procured and delivered, and lo see if they were infected. Those whose Italy and Yugoslavia. Both Unicef and help teachers and health workers iron reaction was positive were referred to the Polish government could look back out problems. hospitals and sanitaria for treatment. on their collaboration with some satis- Food was only one of the essentials The others were vaccinated. faction - a collaboration which was in desperately short supply. Unicef pur- Poor diet was a major problem resumed some years later. A network chased cotton, wool and leather; these among Polish children. In the early of heaJth centres was taking shape, were imported and made into gar- years, a child drinking a glass of milk offering mothers and children all the ments, blankets and shoes. Warsaw's was Unicef's trademark. But importing pre-natal and post-natal services they National Research Institute for the dried milk was never regarded as more needed. At its centre was the Insitute of Mother and Child turned out thousands than a stopgap. In 1948, when the the Mother and Child which Unicef had of neat layettes with diapers, shirts and Unicef Executive Board made funds helped equip. And the infant mortal ity blankets. During 1948 and 1949, every available for "milk conservation", rate had dropped to almost a quarter of mother of a newborn child was entitled Poland immediately welcomed such what it had been just three years before.

UnicefNews UN PHOTQ 10862 Chapter Two: 1950 A fight in the General Assembly

At stake: Unicefs existence. The us wanted to eliminate a special UN organization for children. But the developing countries sprang to its defense.

Mrx. Eleanor Roosevelt, chief i's delegate to she United Nations Committee Untcef was originally expected to finish its India Institute of Hygiene and Public on Social, Humanitarian and Cultural work for children within three years, four Health. Affairs. at most. Bui when in 1950, it was proposed "The war. revolution and mass migra- to extend Unicef's life so it could help chil- tion", they reported, "have created urgent dren in Asia. Africa, and Latin America problems affecting children and mothers over the longer term, the move encountered in all the countries visited...Malnutrition, ations in Europe. Unicef had therefore be- powerful opposition. Unicef survived - bin often in severe degrees, is the usual rather gun to assist countries all over the globe. only just. than the unusual situation among children." mostly with activities similar to those it had Unicefs original mandate extended to The sheer size of the problem of hunger and pioneered in Europe. But it had been the children who had been "victims of aggres- malnutrition, plus the general absence of plight of Europe's children which had sion" and to "child health purposes gener- governmental distribution machinery, provided the motive for Unicefs creation, ally", in all parts of the world. In 1948. made it impossible to carry out large-scale and with European recovery well underway, several Middle Eastern countries began to feeding programmes of the type being some of the major donor countries thought receive help with vaccination against tuber- mounted in Europe. that Unicef should accept the congratula- culosis. Also in 1948. Unicef began sup- In spite of the overwhelming size of the tions of the world community and bow off plying supplementary rations for about problems in Asia. Unicef. determined to the stage. 500.000 Palestinian refugee mothers and prove itself a truly international children's Maurice Pate, the Executive Director. children, at the same lime supplying Israel organization, resolved to find a useful role. had not imagined at first that Unieefs man- with drugs for epidemic control among It was felt that the best investment with the date would extend beyond the emergency immigrant children, and equipment for limited resources available was lo provide for which it was created. As recently a.s May treatment of polio victims. fellowships for training overseas in mater- 1949 he had testified before a us Congres- All the Asian countries had suffered se- nal and child health and in disease control. sional Committee that Unicef would shortly verely in one way or another during World These key national staff could form the wind up its affairs and hand over any re- War II, and were hence eligible for Unicef nucleus of teaching cadres on their return. maining resources to WHO and FAO. By early aid. China was a special case. The bitter Parran and Lakshmanan also recommended 1950. however, he told friends that he had civil war made impossible an effective full- that Unicef should help some countries concluded that the UN should embark on "a scale relief operation, but for a while Unicef launch attacks on mass diseases, especially second chapter" of work for children. He did send relief both to the Nationalist gov- , tuberculosis and yaws. Step by felt that Unicef had given great impetus to ernment and to Communist-held areas (see step, Unicef was trying to respond to chil- governments and individuals everywhere to inset). In 1948 the Executive Board voted an dren's needs in the developing world which, support practical children's programmes, initial $3 million for assistance to Asian considered in their totality, were extremely and that "in the world in which we live countries other than China, following a spe- daunting. today I consider it enormously important to cial mission to 13 countries undertaken by In 1949 the Executive Board allocated keep this kind of spirit alive". Dr. Thomas Parran, former Surgeon- $3.84 million for various nutrition, health, General of the United States, and Dr. S. K. and disease control measures in Latin Lakshmanan. Director General of the All America. Within two years of its first oper- Continued on page 8

UnifefNews ICEF318

Ttie plight of Europe's children provided the motive far Unicefs creation.

The future looks bleak been providing the lion's share of Unicefs of Unicefs future on October 6, 1950. The financial support, and almost all the major representatives of Venezuela and Brazil By the time the General Assembly met for western donor countries - including Brit- were the first to speak. Both emphasized its 1950 session, the us State Department ain, Canada, and South Africa - were look- the needs of the two-thirds of the world's had made clear its view that there was no ing as though they would fall in line behind children who were growing up in under- need for a separate children's organization the us. Among the industrialized countries. developed countries - most of them victims within the United Nations. Their posi- only France had shown any real concern to of hunger and ill health. Their suffering, tion - which would have drastically re- see Unicef survive intact. they felt, should be enough to guarantee the duced Unicefs scope and the operations it The UN committee on social, humanitar- survival of an organization whose cause and had underway - was critical. The us had ian and cultural affairs look up the question actions were universally approved. The us

~ tt Unicef News \> position was presented by no less a figure high ground had been occupied by the de- Unicef. Yet its total expenditure has been than Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, the head of veloping nations. To break the deadlock, the less than half the cost of a single aircraft the us delegation, who had strongly sup- committee adopted an Australian proposal carrier... My hope - and the only practi- ported Unicef at its inception. Overall, she that Unicef should be preserved in its exist- cal salvation for these 500 million said, the best way to help children of the de- ing form for three more years - now with children - is that Unicef will be made veloping countries was to promote general the primary mission of helping meet the permanent.}} economic development. Unicef was an long-term needs of children in the underde- ICEF 27B emergency fund, not an instrument of eco- veloped countries and that the General As- nomic development. The post-war emer- sembly then re-consider Unicef s continuing gency was dwindling. Therefore Unicef existence. Along with the us, many of had no serious long-term role to play. The Unicef s most important backers, past and United States agreed that a modest pro- future - Canada, the , Sweden. gramme for children and some disaster re- Denmark - opposed the motion, but it was lief aid should be continued within the carried by die majority. The tide in Unicef s regular UN structure, but felt that problems favour had turned. When the proposal was of child health, food and nutrition could best taken up in plenary session, on December be handled on a lasting basis through the ex- 1st, the us found itself isolated. Mrs. pert services of specialized agencies such as Roosevelt was absent. Her substitute, Mrs. WHO, FAO, and the Bureau of Social Affairs. Edith Sampson, abstained. The resolution Professor Ahmed Bohkari, Pakistan's keeping Unicef in existence was carried representative to the United Nations, had unanimously, to Pate's relief. been acting as chairman of the session. He Over the next three years Unicef was to stepped down to speak directly on behalf demonstrate convincingly, particularly in of his government and of the developing Asia, how effective its type of assistance countries in general. Professor Bohkari could be in helping to mobilize national described the us position as "a funeral ora- resources for children. Unicefdrugs, antibi- tion for Unicef", reflecting "the illusion that otics, insecticides, and transport made it the emergency is over", possible for many of the developing coun- "Pakistan as well as other countries in tries to take advantage of scientific break- Asia", Bohkari continued, "was shocked to throughs in saving the lives of millions of Raw materials were sent to Greece see in pamphlets distributed by Unicef pho- children. In terms of returns for money and other countries to make shoes and tographs of emaciated European children, spent, results were even more impressive clothing for the needy children. victims of the war. It had, however, received than Unicefs emergency aid to Europe. a second shock on realizing that those When the General Assembly met in 1953, European children still appeared to be in there was stronger support than ever among no worse a state than millions of children the developing countries, for Unicefs At the last moment, the us Congress came living so-called normal lives in the under- continuation. through with continued support, backed developed countries." He particularly de- personally by President Eisenhower. The plored the idea that material assistance of the Financial hard times United States was to remain Unicefs strong- kind Unicef had provided to Europe should est financial supporter for years to come. In be available from the UN only in emergen- The chief problem facing Unicef was now the United Nations, the General Assembly cies. According to this doctrine, he pointed the fear that American support would dry up on October 8th voted unanimously to make out, "children suffering from endemic chol- as a result of Congress's dislike of interna- Unicef a continuing part of the United era might well be denied vaccines, unless tional foreign aid at the height of the cold Nations system. The words "international" their illness is the result of an emergency. war. By now, however, Unicef was acquir- and "emergency" were dropped from its Instead, blueprints for the production of ing influential friends among voluntary or- name, making il simply the United Nations vaccines will be provided to the government ganizations, leading citizens, and in the Children's Fund. But the acronym Unicef concerned, and the United Nations will us Congress. Mrs. Roosevelt, who had so was retained : it was memorable, pro- wash its hands of the fate of the children strenuously opposed Unicef s extension in nounceable, and familiar to millions of peo- pending their local production." 1950, came eloquently to its defence in an ple around the world. In the praise that was article that was widely quoted : showered on Unicef during the debate, The psychological high ground much was made of the fact that within a UN ••TTiere are aboul 900 million children system highly vulnerable to political divi- Bohkari's speech was delivered the first under 15 on earth today. More than sion, Unicef with its emphasis on children afternoon of the debate, and was followed half- about 500 million - live and die in was almost unique in its ability to avoid by ten days of a labyrinthine series of reso- want... they are familiar with hunger, political entanglements and to operate lutions, amendments, and parliamentary cold and disease. The only organization exclusively on humanitarian grounds. D manoeuvcrs. Psychologically, however, the that even begins to answer their needs is

Unicef News On both sides : Unicef in China 1948-49

The first Unicef-assisted programme to simple hygiene by boil ing drinking wa- The First 20 trainees - middle school train local villagers in carrying out sim- ter, disposing of sewage, and killing off graduates - learned the basics in sani- ple health care look place in 1948. in harmful insects. "It seemed to me," he tation, midwifery, first-aid, and com- Communist-held Northern China at the wrote, "that it might be possible to train municable disease prevention. After height of the Civil War. It was held in large numbers to do these things." six weeks they travelled to villages a deserted monastery in Shensi prov- Eloesser got his chance to pul these to vaccinate against smallpox and ince where, amid Nationalist air-raids, ideas into practice in late 1948, at least typhoid, assist at deliveries, and talk caves and rock shelters were being used in a small way. at Unicefs invitalion. about good health practices. When they as hospitals and schools. Unicef had allocated $500,000 for use returned for the second half of their In 1948 the Executive Board allo- behind the Communist lines. Eloesser course, Eloesser was astonished to see cated 55 million in aid to China. thought that a training programme such how capable they had become. UNRRA, which had been heavily com- as he had envisaged with Dr. Su might Eloesser stayed on until the end of the mitted in China, estimated that as many be of permanent value, whereas the second training course, in September as 29 million children needed emer- same money would only buy a cup of 1949. Graduates of the firsi class gency help. Delivering any assistance milk and a pair of diapers for the mil- helped teach the second. Eloesser at all was difficult, however, for the lions of children needing help. hoped that these initial two courses civil war dominated everything. Unicef Eloesser's team was attached to the would be the beginning of a long pern »d managed a feeding programme for Anti-Epidemic Bureau in the town of of fruitful co-operation between Unicef 60,000 children in seven of the larger Shih Chin Chuang, whose temporary and the new Chinese regime. But the cities under Nationalist control, and location was a deserted Trappist mon- lack of UN recognition of the Com- even this small effort ended a few astery with a small herd of cows and munist's newly proclaimed Chinese months later in May 1949, with the Mongolian ponies for culturing vac- People's Republic stalled the pro- collapse of the Nationalist forces on cines. To break a thermometer or a gramme. Unicefs co-operation with the mainland. syringe was a catastrophe, and every the People's Republic was not re- At the same time, resolved to offer empty bottle or tin was a treasure. Be- sumed until the early 1970s. Eloesser's aid to children on boih sides, Unicef tween bombing raids and emergency statemenl to the Unicef Board in sent a small team into Shensi province care for the wounded, plans were November 1949 was nonetheless under Dr. Leo Eloesser. another of worked oul for the first training prophetic ; "Whatever future Unicef these veterans of humanitarian adven- programme of the type envisaged by may have in China, these or similar ture who played such a striking role in Eloesser and Dr. Su. courses will go on". Unicefs early history. A leading us thoracic surgeon, Eloesser had headed a medical unit in the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. In 1945, though he was then 63 years old, he had volunteered his services for medical relief in China. He managed to visit Yenan. (he Com- munist capital in Shensi. where he was tremendously impressed by the medi- cal services operating under the un- certain conditions of guerilla warfare. The staff, he noted, although having received only brief training, was han- dling common disorders as well as more elaborately trained doctors could have done under the circumstances. He had long conversations wilh Dr. Su Chin Kwan, head of the army's medi- cal service, and together they discussed ideas for short-term training in preven- tive medicine : immunization against smallpox, typhoid, cholera, diphtheria; UNITED NATIONS ARCHIVES

111 Unicef News Chapter Three: 1956 The onslaught against disease

During the 1950s, ill-health in the developing world was laid at the door of mass diseases tuberculosis, malaria, yaws, leprosy, trachoma. With bravery and optimism, Vnicef joined the great campaigns to wipe them out.

ICEF251A Spurgeon Milton Keeny - known to every- procurement was put to use. In 1950. one as Sam - Director of Unicef s regional Maurice Pate sent Keeny to Asia. Behind a office for Asia, used to carry a pair of pho- deliberately unassuming manner. Pate tographs in his briefcase wherever he went. recognised a demanding and efficient ex- Their subjects were the same : an Indone- ecutive, one completely dedicated to a prac- sian mother holding her child. In the first, tical, grassroots approach. both were suffering from yaws; the mother's Yaws is a disease whose name today is so face was blotched by suppurating sores, and uncommon that it is seldom heard, but in the of the baby's face, only a pair of pain-Ill led 1950s it was all too common in southeast eyes, twisted mouth and an ear could be de- Asia. The disease is spread by contact with tected. The second picture showed the its open sores, which affect the face, [he mother and child two weeks later, after treat- palms of the hands, and the soles of the feet. ment with penicillin. The mother's face In severe cases they can cover the whole of showed a few scarred patches; the baby's the body. In the villages of southeast Asia. was completely clear, the skin smooth and children running barefoot along narrow healthy. All traces of the raspberry sores of paths often had cuts and scrapes and easily yaws had vanished. These two photographs picked up the disease from one another. were part of Keeny's salesman's pilch for the Around 100 million people lived in yaws- onslaught against a painful and debilitating infected areas, of which 65 million were in illness. Indonesia. In some villages, almost all (he The 1950s saw Unicef heavily engaged in children had the tell-tale raspberry lesions. campaigns against mass diseases affecting children in tropical countries. Of these, the The magic of penicillin Yaws: an afflicted mother and child, campaign against yaws in southeast Asia before and after penicillin treatment. was the most impressive example of how Trials in the Caribbean had shown that 20lh century scientific advance could be ex- penicillin could cure yaws. When Keeny ar- ploited in the war on sickness. Sam Keeny rived in Asia, he looked around for good was the architect of Unicef s assistance to candidates for control campaigns : diseases give a shot of long-acting penicillin to every this campaign. that were widespread and for which a cheap person with a sore. Keeny came from a modest farming com- and certain cure existed. He settled on yaws There was some hesitation on the pa it of munity in Pennsylvania. Like Maurice Pate, for the first onslaught, in a campaign thai the experts who gathered in Bangkok in he had taken part in relief work in eastern would help raise money for further disease 1952 for the first international conference Europe in the chaotic period immediately control ventures. on yaws. Most of them wanted to proceed following the first world war. In the twen- The principal theatre of operations would cautiously, but Keeny noticed one young ties and thirties he published books for the be Indonesia, the yaws capital of the world. doctor in the crowd who had a different VMCA, but when war again broke out he be- Here, in Jogjakarta in central Java. Dr. view. "I called him in privately and said. came once more involved in international Kodijat. a soft-spoken Indonesian special- 'Whal's the real line we ought to take?" relief. In 1943 he went to Italy as UNRRA'S ist with an international reputation, had "He said, 'Go after this straight. Get the chief, as the allied armies of liberation already started attacking yaws. He was penicillin into these people, as many as you marched up the peninsula. After UNRRA training teams of male nurses - martins - can, as quickly as you can, and you can closed down, he joined Unicefs Paris office to go out into the countryside, village by break up the disease'." where his prodigious skill for supplies village, examine everyone for yaws and Kodijat and his colleagues agreed with the

Unicef News ICEF 3898/Ling control programme : it was cheap, popular, and could be successfully implemented by u developing country with the help of a new "miracle drug". Not only in Indonesia, but in the Philip- pines, Thailand, and parts of India, yaws was crumbling.

The global malaria campaign

The mass disease campaigns of the 1950s were not expected to provide the complete answer to maternal and child health prob- lems in the developing world. The idea was to eliminate the tremendous load such dis- eases placed on countries' limited resources so as to pave the way for other child health measures. Special campaigns were mounted against tuberculosis, leprosy, and trachoma, all susceptible to treatment with modern drugs. The problems they posed, however, were more complex than yaws, and results were often disappointing. Most disappoint- ing of all, because it involved the highest hopes, was the global assault against the most prevalent of all mass diseases, malaria. Malaria is caused by a parasite transmit- ted in the bite of a number of species of anopheles mosquitoes. Endemic to the In the 1950s, 65 million Indonesian children lived in yaws-infected areas. A target of one tropics and sublropics, malaria is not con- million penicillin injections to cure the disease was reached within 3 years, by 1955. fined to rainy or humid areas. In the deserts of Iran, malaria-bearing mosquitoes can breed in the amount of water that collects in a camel's hoofprint. According to WHO strategy, but Indonesia did not have the given a brief training as yaws "scouts". estimates of the late 1940s, a billion people resources to carry it out. Keeny convinced These djurupateks went by bicycle from vil- lived in countries where malaria was wide- them to try it, guaranteeing from Unicef lage to village looking for yaws cases, and spread. penicillin and syringes, funds for training, assembled them at a convenient time and The discovery during World War II of the and all the jeeps, landrovers and bicycles place to receive their shots from the man- insecticide powers of DDT made the eradi- they needed. Over the next few years the In- tri. Adopted by Kodijat as part of his na- cation of malaria theoretically possible. donesian yaws campaign was a spectacular tional strategy, this use of non-professional Total extermination of all potentially malar- success. An initial $1.2 million from Unicef staff as auxiliaries quickly extended the ial mosquitos was impracticable. But with for two years' work in Indonesia covered campaign's outreach at very low cost. DDT it was possible to try and destroy all the four, as the price of penicillin sharply Indonesia is a very large country, extend- most dangerous mosquitoes - the ones declined. The goal set by Keeny and Kodijat ing over half a dozen huge islands and which had just had a "blood meal" from a was to cure 10 million cases of yaws by several thousand small ones. The campaign malaria victim, thus breaking the man- 1965. The target of one million penicillin in- went quickly in Java, where most of the mosquito-man transmission cycle. DDT, jections a year was reached not within five country's population is concentrated. By whose killing power lasted for months, years as originally planned, but within 1960 abouty 56 million people had been could be sprayed onto the inside walls of three, by 1955. examined, and more than 10 million cases houses in malarial areas. After three of yaws had been identified and treated. infection-free years, malaria dies out in the The yaws "scouts" Though millions were still exposed to yaws human body. The disease could thus be in the remote outer islands, the achievement wiped out if spraying was kept up and trans- Treating this number of cases meant ex- was a tremendous one. mission could be definitively broken over amining up to ten limes as many people for The campaigns against yaws in south east this period. symptoms. Dr. Soetopo, a WHO expert in Asia attracted considerable attention in The strategy of DDT spraying worked in East Java, began recruiting bright young- international health care circles. In many Sardinia and the southern Italian mainland sters with a primary school certificate to be ways yaws control was the perfect disease soon after World War II. DDT spraying e'lse-

12 Unicef News where led to a sharp reduction in malaria meant treating any leti-over cases and keep- The perfidious mosquito rates. In 1955 WHO, over-encouraged by ing an eye on danger areas. Straightforward these results, proposed a world-wide cam* enough in concept, this involved a tremen- Despite some practical misgivings, Unicef paign aimed not just at malaria control. but dous effort in practical terms. In Mexico, for a while supported the global eradication at its total eradication. Unicef had already for example, nearly three million houses in effort wholeheartedly. From 1957 through been active in malaria control. Now i( took malarial areas had to be first mapped and 1959 the Executive Board allocated $25 up the challenge of the global eradication numbered and subsequently sprayed in a million - 40% of total assistance - to campaign by providing DDT, sprayers, programme requiring more than 600 cam- anti-malarial campaigns. By 1960, how- transport, and training stipends to 29 coun- paign vehicles, 312 senior staff, and 1.650 ever, many were running into difficulties. tries, mainly in Latin America and the East- spraymen. In addition, hospitals, health Mosquito feeding habits were changing : ern Mediterranean, Technical guidance and centres, and private doctors had to be they were taking their "blood meals" out-of- assistance came from WHO and its western brought into the campaign and convinced to doors beyond the reach of the DDT poison. hemisphere affiliate, the Pan-American report every single case of fever to the And, providing an example of natural selec- Sanitary Organization. malaria authorities. And the campaign was tion, DDT-resistant strains of mosquitoes Malaria eradication was to be accom- far from cheap; the cost to Unicef alone for were appearing everywhere. In the parts of plished by intensified spraying for three insecticides, spray equipment and transport the world where marlaria was most ram- years - the "attack phase" - followed by for Mexico came to $8.4 million for the pant, it was extremely difficult to maintain consolidation and maintenance, which period 1956-59. the level of administrative and logistic effi-

ICEF 48O

Unicefcu id WHO waged a joint global malaria eradication campaign before the mosquitoes which carry the parasite became resistant to DDT.

y* Unicef News 13 Unicef and the dairies

Among Unicef's most satisfying ac- of its rehabilitation of the dairy indus- ever possible, Unicef tried to develop complishments in the 1950s was Ihu try in war-ravaged Europe. At the time, the local dairy industry. supporting role it played in the develop- milk was regarded as the pcrf'ecl sup* Milk and ghee - clarified butter - ment of a milk producer's co-operative plementary food for malnourished chil- were an important part of the Indian movement in western India, and the dren. The invention of milk drying diet. The water buffaloes which pro- provision of clean low-cost milk to the techniques had made available surplus vided Bombay's milk supply - and children of Bombay. The principals skim milk powder in large quantities muchoflndia's - used to be quartered were Verghese Kurien. the young man- from North America, Australia and by their owners in filth-ridden stables ager of the co-operative unions, and New Zealand. In the early 1950s Unicef off the crowded city street. In 1948. D.N, Khurody, the energetic milkcom- shipped as much as 100 million pounds under Khurody's leadership, the missioner of Bombay. a year of dried milk to Asia, Latin Bombay authorities moved all the city's Unicef entered dairying in the de- America and Africa. But this was buffaloes to a tidy colony 20 miles veloping world as a logical extension hardly a long range solution, and wher- away. Buffalo milk is about twice as

14 Unicef News ciency that a successful eradication drive required. rich in butter fat as cow's. Khurody hit a day gave the families money to put With the benefit of hindsight, it is hard to on the scheme of "toning" buffalo milk into better fodder for their animals and imagine how the experts could have been so with water and imported skim milk better food for themselves. The grow- sanguine about eradication's prospects. Suc- powder to produce a milk with the fat ing wealth of the countryside sparked cess in any given ecological zone, which content of cow's milk : three per cent. development : schools, roads, and might embrace several countries, required His toned milk was marketed to con- small irrigation facilities. that the inside of all dwellings and animal sumers at half the price of buffalo milk; In Bombay, demand for milk went on shelters be sprayed to schedule - a tall order some of it was purchased by the Bom- rising. Khurody drew up plans for a anywhere in the world. And since there bay government for distribution to new plant nearby at Worli. and within was no hope of wiping out all the mosqui- 40,000 school children. a year, stainless steel Unicef equipment toes, the disease could make a rapid come- The Bombay authorities soon began began to process milk drawn from back so long as any reservoir of malaria to supplement their milk supplies from Kaira and elsewhere in Bombay's ex- remained. Still, hopes remained bouyant. In Anancl, the headquarters of Verghese panding milkshed. When it was offi- 1964 WHO could report that 683 million Kurien's milk co-operative union in cially inaugurated in May 1963. Worli persons were living in areas completely Kaira District. 260 miles to the north. was the world's largest milk-processing or nearly free from malaria and that iwo Most of its families kept one or two facility under a single roof. Its capacity million lives a year were being saved, most buffaloes, tended by the women and was 300.000 litres a day. of them children's. children, and milk production had long Kurien and Khurody proved that, in By then, however, the tide of optimism been a cottage industry. In 1946. under India, large-scale dairying under was turning. In many countries, things were the leadership ofSadar Patel. Moraji tropical conditions was economically not going at all to plan. The Unicef Board De.sai and other distinguished Gand- viable. Kurien had demonstrated that put a sharp ceiling on allocations for malaria hians. a number of villages in Kaira had thousands of small-time milk producers work and concentrated on the build-up of banded together to prevent middle- could be organized into efficient co- health services which could provide "a men from creaming off their profits. operatives. Khurody had brought enor- whole range of measures for the protection Thanks to the dynamism and entre- mous quantities of clean, reliable of children", not just for the cure of one preneurial flair of Kurien. and the polit- "toned" milk to Bombay at a price that or two diseases. By 1970 Unicefs aid to ical backing of Sadar Patel. the milk people could afford. When India began malaria control as a separate programme co-operative union grew into a pop- todevelopadairy industry nationwide. category had been phased out. ular movement. By 1953. 58 village Unicef helped equip half a dozen other Malaria has made a steady comeback societies had joined, with a member- modern dairy plants in India, and since the mid-1970s. Over 50 of the 60 ship of 10,600 farmers. offered to pay for training dairy en- known species of anopheles mosquito have By then, both the Bombay milk gineers and extension workers. become resistant to DDT. The parasite, too. scheme and the Kaira co-op badly In some other developing countries. is developing resistance to chloroquine needed the kind of equipment that Unicefs efforts to help dairying met and other anti-malarials. Malaria again Unicef was in an ideal position to pro- with less success. The problem was that threatens half the world's people. Eradica- vide. Khurody needed pasteurization it was rarely possible to place a plant or tion will be out of the question until there is and bottling lines. Kurien needed milk- a factory between poor families and a new scientific breakthrough. Best hopes drying plants so that Kaira's seasonal food, and produce something they today rest on the development of a vaccine. surplus would not go to waste. After an could afford to buy. Even in India, sub- The big disease control campaigns that experiment to discover whether buffalo sidies in the shape of imported skim Unicef helped finance in the 1950s and early milk could indeed be dried - some- milk were necessary. In the late 1960s 1960s were seen as a quick, cost-effective thing that had never before been tried - Unicef concluded that it had gone about way of improving mother and child health both concerns were in business. as tar as it could justifiably go in dairy while the slower process of building up The Kaira drying plant was opened development. The search to find cheap, widespread networks of basic health serv- on Oct. 31, 1955, by Prime Minister processed high-protein foods, such as ices pushed ahead. In the case of yaws - as, Nehru. Throughout the district, thou- those based on soy. met a similar fate. later, in the case of smallpox - the strategy sands of men, women and children The results failed to turn up accept- worked; in the case of malaria, despite the from more than 100 villages queued able products that poor families could many lives saved over the short-term, it twice a day with their brass pots at col- afford. Sound nutrition was not sus- actually left the disease more difficult to lection stations, bringing between one ceptible to high technology; simpler control. By the mid 1960s, it was becoming and five pounds of milk. The milk was solutions based on simple techniques clear that the best way to achieve control of weighed, checked for its fat content, in the villages were needed. tuberculosis, malaria, trachoma, leprosy and the producer was paid in cash on and other mass diseases was by expanding the nail. This income of a few rupees community health services. The days of the mass campaign - for the time being - were over. D

\rp Unicef News 15 Chapter Four: 1961 tion, most of it to go to teacher training institutes. The Board turned the proposal down, with only France among the major donor countries coming out in its support. Most of the developing countries were in The "whole" child favour, and the split was distinctly uncom- fortable. In the same year, 1959, the UN General Assembly proclaimed the 1960s as the "In- As Vnicef entered the first Development Decade, ternational Development Decade". If Unicef continued to function mainly as a supply it found itself undergoing an organizational adolescent crisis, operation tied to traditional fields of hu- A major change in policy emerged. manitarian aid. it might miss the boat. In the context of international development, its efforts might seem to be less and less rele- vant - and in the 1960s the word "relevant", By I960 Unicef was firmly established as a sistance plus technical know-how. These whether among economic planners or uni- going United Nations concern - indeed, as ideas implied that humanitarian aid was a versity students, was almost a shibboleth. one of the UN'S most highly esteemed, and little suspect - a holdover from colonial Among Pate's lieutenants, E.J.R, Hey- certainly least controversial, operations. "Lady Bountiful" attitudes. ward. an Australian economist who had The countries which voluntarily provided The poorer countries now began to insist been Deputy Executive Director since 1949, most of its funds were making regular an- that they should play a larger role in deter- and Georges Sicault, a French authority on nual contributions on a gradually increas- mining the terms and directions of interna- public health who joined Unicef in the mid- ing scale. Three quarters of its assistance tional aid. The notion of a"third world" - a 1950s, saw the danger plainly. Heyward was was going to the build-up of basic mother world of non-aligned countries tied neither convinced that economic development and and child health services and disease con- to the Western "market economy" bloc nor programmes to meet humanitarian needs trol. The rest was going to child feeding and to the Eastern "socialist economy" bloc - had to move foward together. Sicault was nutrition, with a small amount for emer- gained wide currency following the Afro- convinced that the needs of children had to gency aid. The great bulk of its help took the Asian Conference held in Bandung, Indone- be addressed as a whole, so that individual form of tangible supplies and equipment, sia, in 1955; and it was through the United efforts in disease control, nutrition, educa- conferring on Unicef the reputation of a Nations and its affiliated organizations tion, and sanitation, reinforced one another, practical, "get it done" agency, and its ob- that the third world countries increasingly jectives - better child health and nutrition - brought their own development priorities Rights of the Child were unimpeachable. forward. Nevertheless Unicef had to adjust to new The Declaration of the Rights of the Child, challenges. Changes were taking place in Time to move into education unanimously adopted by the General As- the way the problems of the world's poorer sembly in late 1959. provided powerful countries, including the problems affecting In the developing countries, education en- ideological support to the progressive point their children, were perceived. The late joyed a high mystique. Better primary edu- of view within Unicef. The Declaration 1950s and early 1960s were a period of rapid cation was clearly one of the leading needs specified the child's rights to adequate nutri- decolonization : in 1960 alone, the so-called of the developing countries' children, and tion, medical services, housing and recre- "Year of Africa", 17 African countries at- education and development clearly went ation. There was elaboration of the child's tained independence. This shifted the vot- hand in hand. Maurice Pate himself had dependency on the family, and of his ing sirength of the UN'S General Assembly hoped from the beginning that Unicef could mother's needs on his behalf. One principle strongly in favour of the "developing coun- find a way to aid primary education, and in was pertinent to the ongoing debate about tries", as the poorer countries were now 1958, with "development" becoming the education : "He shall be given an education described. Within these countries, within watchword, the time seemed ripe to ap- which will promote his general culture, and the UN and the international aid community, proach the Executive Board. enable him on the basis of equal opportunity the gospel of development was being The chairman. Mahmood Shafqat, speak- to develop his abilities, his individual judge- preached as the road to economic and social ing in his capacity as delegate of Pakistan, ment, and his sense of moral and social salvation. Development, as succinctly de- pointed out that the $282 million disbursed responsibility, and to become a useful mem- fined by Paul G. Hoffman, the dynamic by Unicef in its 12 years of existence had ber of society". The International Union for head of the UN new Special Fund for De- been spent exclusively on children's physi- Child Welfare, not Unicef, had led the way velopment Co-operation, was seen not just cal survival and well-being. He felt that in persuading the UN to endorse the Decla- as growth, but as "growth plus change". The Unicef might do well also to consider their ration; but the General Assembly affirmed rich countries, it was now believed, could mental development. The following year, that Unicef provided a practical vehicle of help the poor countries to shake off their Pate presented a proposal to the Board for international co-operation to help countries poverty through injections of capital as- $250.000 in assistance to primary educa- carry out the Declaration's aims. The chal-

16 Unicef News ICEF 5918/Vajrathon

Belter primary education was one of the leading needs of the developing countries.

lenge to Unicef was growing. world, and in early 1960 he persuaded the WHO), education (UNESCO), social welfare Shortly after the Declaration's adoption Board to go along with a modest effort in this (UN Bureau of Social Affairs), and labour Pate wrote to more than 90 members of direction. (ILO). The survey, as Sicault noted in his re- Unicef s professional staff around the The resulting Survey of the Needs of port, revealed "a terrible picture of wide- world, asking "Quo vadis?" - whither are Children was organized by Georges Sicault spread suffering and privation". Poverty, we going? Unicef was undergoing the grow- and took a year to complete. It was based on disease, hunger and ignorance interacted ing pains of organizational adolescence. A reports from 24 different countries and was tragically with one another as both cause and suggestion that caught Pate's imagination accompanied by others from the specialized effect ofthe child's overall predicament. As was that Unicef should undertake a survey agencies relating to various children's a starting point for action, the report sug- of the basic needs of children around the needs: health (WHO), nutrition (FAO and gested, dominant needs might be identified

*J Unicef News \1 The population factor Unicef assistance would take its usual UNiCEF 1357;84,'Woltt forms - training stipends, teaching aids, transport - but no contraceptives, which would have to come from else- where. Even this modest proposal pro- voked a bitter controversy. Delegates from Switzerland. Belgium, the Philippines, Peru, Brazil, and Senegal objected strenuously to what they con- sidered the proposal's implicit endorse- ment of contraception. Delegates from India, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Egypt just as strongly supported the proposal, as of course did Sweden and the USA. After several rounds of acrimonious debate, the parties agreed to disagree. No support to family planning would be provided until a further review had taken place. By the following year tempers had cooled. Labouisse's gentle behind-the-scenes persuasion paid off, and in 1967 the Board approved When , the Swedish dele- hostile reception from some Unicef a cautious involvement in "responsible gate, addressed the 1961 meeting of the Board Members. Countries with pre- parenthood" in the context of mother Board, endorsing the Executive Direc- dominantly Catholic populations, in- and child health- tor's proposal to broaden Unicef aid to cluding all of Latin America, might Family planning remained an issue include education and other needs of agree that population growth was a over which it was impossible to please the "whole"1 child, he only regretted thai serious problem, but publicly advocat- everybody. In subsequent years Unicef the proposal had overlooked what he ing contraception or sterilization to try was criticized by some for not doing considered a most important matter: and control it - as India was beginning enough about population - although its family planning. Rapid population todo - struck them as scandalous. For policy gradually broadened to include growth, and its effects on poor people a time, Unicef. like WHO and other UN the provision of contraceptives. Others in many developing countries, was be- agencies, tried to avoid involvement in complained that Unicef was too closely coming an issue that could no longer the controversy. It feared, with some involved with preventing children be overlooked. justice, that with emotions running being born instead of helping those The population issue had come to the powerfully on both sides, it would be already alive. The creation of the UN fore in the post-war years. Until then, "damned if it did" give aid to family Fund for Population Activities in 1970 when governments worried about the planning and "damned if it didn't". took some of the heat off. population problem, it was the drop in Unwilling to let the matter drop, the In time, however, it became evident birth rates which prompted concern Swedes began to gain allies on the that family planning programmes, no about national size and standing. In Executive Board who were willing to matter how much support they at- Asia. Africa and Latin America, birth recognize the importance of spacing tracted, were no panacea. Bringing rates were high; but for many years so between births in the health and well- population growth and development were death rates. Suddenly, in the being of mothers and children. In 1965 back in step depended on a variety of 1950s the mass campaigns against dis- the USA asked that family planning be measures, including several with which ease pushed the death rates sharply put on the 1966 agenda. Unicef was involved for other reasons : downwards. The result was that popu- In 1966, the Board met in Addis female literacy, education, community lations started increasing at a rate which Ababa. The new Executive Director, development, and social welfare. meant they would double every 20 to Henry Labouisse, proposed that in Family planning services belonged 30 years - a population explosion that cases where governments gave a high right where Unicef had felt they be- was without precedent in history. priority to family planning, Unicef longed all along: as an integral part Sweden's enthusiasm for aid to fam- might legitimately help them expand of all efforts to improve the well-being ily planning was, therefore, perfectly their mother and child health services, of mothers and children. logical; but it met with a chilly and even including family planning elements.

is Unicef News UN PHOTO 74883 within each age group. Before birth, at Maurice Pale, Unicefs first Executive birth, in early infancy, the most important Director, implemented the idea of a consideration was health protection for both survey of children's basic needs—that mother and child; at weaning, nutrition and of the "\vhole" child, not just the child's control ofdiarrhoeal infection; once wean- health or nutrition problems. ing was over, the toddler was vulnerable to infectious and epidemic diseases. By the age of five, the most important need was in- tellectual stimulation and schooling; in Rockefeller Foundation's centre in Bellagio. adolescence, vocational training and social Italy. At most previous Unicef-sponsored welfare. By implication, Uniccf and others round-tables, the leading participants had trying to meet children's needs - the needs been experts in health, nutrition, and milk of the "whole" child, not just the child's processing; now they were joined by distin- health or nutrition problems - should be guished development economists : Profes- open to proposals for dealing with any or all sors Jan Tinbergen from Holland. Alfred of these. Countries themselves should draw Sauvy of France, and Hans Singer from up their own order of priorities for meeting the UK. their children's needs. The Bellagio conference legitimized the The report impressed the Board. Mem- idea that the needs of children and youth bers who had previously expressed reserva- deserved specific attention in national de- tions about assisting primary education now velopment plans. The idea was not that gave their approval not only to aid to pri- children should be treated as a new de- mary education, but to consideration of a velopment "sector", but that within the broader range of proposals. The 1961 Board various sectors - health, agriculture, edu- agreed, moreover, that Unicef could con- cation, employment - their needs ought to tribute to the costs of national surveys of be recognized not merely on humanitarian children's needs to help frame better grounds but on the grounds of society's own proposals. In the years to come more and health and well-being, present and future. more Unicef-assisted programmes ad- Unicef followed-up the Bellagio round-table dressed themselves to several related by supporting a series of similar confer- children's needs and involved co-operation ences, successively closer to the ground ; at with several government ministries. continental levels, then at regional, country and institutional levels. At universities Children in national development where development studies were entering the curriculum. Unicef tried to convert allies A final step remained to synchronize Unicef to its perspective. Academic and intellectual thinking with that of the UN Development respectabil ity was needed for the children's Decade. The idea ot'drawing up multi-year cause, development plans to guide the allocation of The exercise had lasting effects, although scarce resources was beginning to gain wide they were hard to quantify. The word "plan- acceptance among third-world countries. ning11 lost some of its glamour over the India, with its succession of Five-Year years : faith in five-year plans and similar Plans, was one of the pioneers, and such exercises was shaken by the harsh realities Plans were beginning to be demanded by in- of the late 1960s and the disappointments of ternational donors as a pre-condition for the First Development Decade. Unicefs official aid. Unicef began to make out a case own planning team disbanded at around that that resources devoted to the physical well- time. But by then it had become standard being and educational development of chil- practice for many governments to plan dren were a sound investment in a country's programmes for the "whole" child at the na- future economic development. A small team tional level and invite Unicefs assistance in of planning theorists, led by Professor many sectors at once. The idea of persuad- Edward Iwas/.kiewicz from Poland, were ing governments and international organi- assembled at Headquarters to articulate and zations concerned with economic progress promote the idea of national planning for to keep the children's cause where it should children. Their efforts culminated in April be - at the top of their list - remained a 1964 in a high-level international round dream, however, and has remained one table conference on "Children and Youth ever since. ~\ in National Development", held at the

Unicef News 19 Chapter Five: 1965 The day the award of the 1965 to Unicef was announced, a small boy in New York greeted his father, a corre- spondent at the UN, with the excited an- nouncement : "Hey, Dad. we just won the A helping hand Nobel Prize". By "we" he meant his class- mates and himself who had collected Hal- lowe'en "Trick or Treat" contributions for Unicef every year. Within the UN family, Unicef became a unique UN organization : no organization has been as fortunate as the centre of a network of helping hands all over the globe, Unicef in finding itself the centre of a net- work which has conveyed the appeal of including princesses, presidents, National Committees, Unicef and children to so many helping and stars such as Danny Kaye, Ambassador at Large hands. to the children of the world. Much of this good fortune derived from the character of Maurice Pate, Unicefs first Executive Director. Pate attached as much importance to support from citizens' groups as he did to government contributions and believed that there was no higher calling than voluntary service, The first citizens' group to come together on Unicefs behalf was the us Committee for Unicef, which held its first meeting in January 1948 in the white House at the invitation of Mrs. Harry Truman. The idea of organizing children to collect "Trick or Treat" money for Unicef on Hallowe'en instead of asking for candy or playing pranks originated with the pastor of a small church in Pennsylvania and his wife. In 1950 their Sunday school class raised $17 for Unicef and sent it off to New York. By 1953 the idea had spread and was taken over by the us Committee, reaching one of its high points in 1966 when Pope Paul VI, visiting UN Headquarters, was met by a group of children carrying their Unicef "Trick or Treat" boxes. In the early fifties. Pate found himself sit- ting next to the celebrated entertainer and comedian Danny Kaye on a scary Atlantic flight which was nearly lost when one of the plane's engines caught fire. Pale talked to Danny about Unicef, and some months later Kaye took a trip to Asia and made the celebrated film "Assignment Children". For more than 30 years, he has since served as Unicefs Ambassador at Large to the world's children. Kaye was the first of many cele- brated actors and other public figures, in- cluding Marlon Brando, Peter Ustinov, Liv Ullmann, the Brazilian soccer star Pele, and the world heavyweight champion Mohammed Ali. to make voluntary appear- ances for Unicef; but Kaye outdid them all. To boost the annual 'Trick or Treat" drive, Danny Kaye. Unicefs 'Ambassador at Large', um welcomed in Rangoon, during the Danny went on whirlwind tours of cities all filming of "Assignment Children", the story of Unicefs work in Asia. over North America piloting his private

20 Unicef News S COMMITTEE FOR UNICEF 'AvSkian '

"Trick or Treat" is the idea of organizing American children to collect money for Unicef on Halloween instead of asking this day for candy or playing pranks.

plane, eventually earning a place in the signs. Unicef greeting cards were becoming Nils Thedin, led the Swedish delegation to Guiness Book of Records. a large and successful operation. By the end the Board for 13 years. 1971-1984. of the 1950s there were a dozen national The national committee network grows committees in Europe. By the end of the Growing pains 1970s the number had grown to 26, includ- Outside Europe the us Committee was ing committees in six Eastern European For the Swiss Committee, the milk cam- joined in 1955 by a Canadian Committee for countries. paign of 1960 achieved a tremendous ad- Unicef, which also went in for Hallowe'en The new committees came up with their vance in public understanding of Unicef. By fund-raising, and by the end of the sixties own original ideas for fund-raising. Jan the mid-sixties Unicef was already de- by committees in Australia, Israel, Japan Eggink, head of the Netherlands Commit- emphasizing milk, thus depriving the com- and New Zealand. tee, imported 200,000 clay piggybanks mittee of one of its strongest selling points The organization of national committees from Ceylon and persuaded Princess with the dairy-conscious Swiss. Unicef's in Europe, where Unicef had begun its Beatrix to promote their sale as Unicef col* "new look" - planning for children within work, was helped along by Willie Meyer, lection boxes. In 1960 there was a temporary economic and social development - did not an energetic staff member in UNICEF'S shortage of surplus skim milk from North easily tend itself to catchy fund-raising European Office in Paris, tndefatigably, America on which Unicef was relying for based on the image of the hungry child. The he made the rounds of Belgium. West a number of child feeding programmes. The committees wanted concrete examples of Germany, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Swiss Committee organized a door-to-door Unicef in action to publicize - programmes Italy, Luxembourg, his native Switzerland, Unicef milk drive. that were simple in concept and that really and the UK. Meyer had a powerful trump An example of a different kind of com- "worked", generating dramatic "before" and card to play. In addition to whatever other mittee was the Swedish, supported by "after" photos of children cured of a hide- educational or fund-raising work the new government funds. Launched under the ous disease or brought back from the brink committees might undertake, they could umbrella of Radda Barnen. the Swedish of starvation. instantly embark on the promotion and sale Save the Children Federation, it never For a long time the committees lobbied of Unicef s greeting cards. The greeting attempted to compete for private donations. for the right to raise money for identifiable cards were a story in themselves. They grew Its task was to argue the case in Sweden projects: a particular dairy plant here, a out of a thank-you card to Unicef from a for a good-sized government contribution specific midwife training project there. Un- seven-year old Czech girl named Dzitka to Unicef and to argue the Unicef Board til 1964 Unicef resisted, insisting that con- which was printed up for the organization's into going along with policies Sweden tributions should go to a general fund to be own use in 1949. With artists like Picasso approved : mother and child health and allocated as the Executive Board decided. and Matisse persuaded to contribute de- family planning, for example. Its chairman. All they could do was to give their sup-

UnicefNews -'i Unicef

1946- 40 Years for Children 1956-60 1986 Trying to eradicate malaria Unicef joins WHO in a world-wide <* campaign to eradicate malaria be- fore the mosquitoes which carry the United Nations Children''- Fumi UN PHOTO 31283 parasite develop resistance to DDT. The campaign saved many lives, but failed in its principal goal.

I960m New image The symbol of a mother and child replaces the old Unicef emblem of a child with a cup of milk.

1961 Needs of Children Survey Survey of the needs of children paints 'a terrible picture of wide- spread suffering and privation' and the interrelated needs of the 'whole' child, opening the way for new types* of Unicef" assistance.

1962 Education In independent African countries. Unicef responds to demand for 1946-49 teachers' training, primary1 class- Food to Europe /953 room equipment, and curricula European children, in the wake of The attack on yaws adaptation. By 1965. education World War II. lace famine and dis- Trials proved that yaws - a hideous absorbs 43% of Unicef s assistance ease. Unicef is created in December disease affecting millions of chil- to Africa. 1946 by LIN General Assembly to dren - could be cured with one shot 1958 provide emergency aid. Shipments of penicillin. Unicef helps Indone- Greeting card sales take off iABCOerPGHilJKTJ of milk and other vital supplies sia, "the yaws capital of the world', 10 years after Dzitka of Czecho- are made to 12 countries from launch a campaign to identify and slovakia painted the first Unicef 1947 to 1950. cure 10 million cases: and fights greeting card, sales of cards reach yaws in Thailand. Haiti. Philippines 10 million. and elsewhere. 2*2-1 1948 1954 1959 BCG vaccination Danny Kaye's assignment The Rights of the Child Unicef joins Scandinavian Red for children UN General Assembly adopts the Cross Societies in a world-wide The popular American comedian 'Declaration of the Rights of the campaign to fight luberculosis. and motion picture star Danny Kaye Child', emphasizing children's volunteers to work for Unicef and rights to health care, adequate nutri- 1964 7950 becomes its 'Ambassador at Large'. tion, education and welfare. Aid Bangkok through Unicef is specified as a The great shift He makes a film, 'Assignment Executive Board meets for first lime Children', about Unicef s work in practical way of helping 10 carry out With European recovery, some in a developing country, in Bangkok. Asia, which is seen by more than its aims. countries feel Unicef s job is over. Thailand. Board congratulates the 100 million people. But poorer nations argue lhat UN 21 National Committees for Unicef cannot ignore the children threat- on their work and accords them a ened by hunger and disease in iheir 1955 special relationship. countries. General Assembly Inauguration of the extends Unicef s life. Anand milk plant Prime Minister Nehru of India inaugurates Uniccf-equipped milk- drying plant of the pioneering Kaira District milk producers' co-operative in Gujerat, a step in ten-year programme to help mod- ernize India's dairy industry. it 40

1971-73 1983 Water Child Survival and Unicef starts hard-rock drilling in Development Revolution India and becomes heavily involved Unicef launches drive to save the in village drinking water supplies lives of millions of children each in many countries lo improve child year, with special emphasis on four health and lessen women's low-cost measures: growth moni- drudgery. larvae peitftrair \km toring, oral rehydraiion therapy. ui man promotion of breast-feeding, and immunization.

infei-tetl faeces reat-h water, wltisinstHne fg& lutti'h. embryoptttemati mail where infrftn i1 Iiinut'lt'inr '.ii'iil an,/ larvae ile\-?lt'[> •.mm in water

1965 7976 1979-80 Nobel Peace Prize Basic services strategy The Kampuchea crisis Unicei' is awarded the 1965 Nobel Economic crisis in many uwnlries Designated as UN'S lead agency'on Peace Prize in Oslo. Norway, 'for prompts new thinking about chil- account of its nun-political status, the promotion of brotherhood dren's services. Unicef elaborates Unicet'plays key role in $634 mil- among nations' a new strategy 10 help mobilize lion joint UN/Red Cross relief oper- resources at community level in ation for shattered Kampuchea. fields of health, nutrition, educa- B 1966 tion, and women's advanccmeni. 1980 Dispute over family planning Decreasing women's burden Executive Board, meeting in Addis 1978 Al the mid-poini of the International Ababa, Ethiopia, cannot agree to Primary health care Decade for Women (1975-85). Unicef aid lo family planning. Deci- An international conference spon- Unicei'decided to give more empha- sion put off until 1967, when Board sored by WHO and Unk-ef at Alma sis to income-general ing activities approves assistance as part of Ata. USSR, endorses primary health for women, in their expanding rote mother and child health services. care based on the use of village- as family providers. level workers. Target: 'Health for All by the year 2000'. a <&• i 0 i> d J Q Q Q HO 9 1 7979 %J£w 1985 International Year Immunization of all of the ChUd children by 1990 1968-70 Marked by celebrations around the On the 40th anniversary of the UN, Children in countries at war world, IYC provides a chance for the General Assembly endorses the Aid is given lo children on both people and organizations every- ± '* Unicef and WHO target of universal sides of the civil war in Nigeria. where lo reaffirm their concern for child immunization against diph- and is approved in principle for children and accelerate action for theria, whooping cough, tetanus, both parts of Viet Nam. according improving their situation. measles, poliomyelitis, and tubercu- to the Unicef principle of aiding losis by the year 1990. all children in need, regardless of political considerations. /97/ Slums and shantytowns 1981 Unicef for the first time starts to The breast-feeding code address the plight of children in the Alarmed over decline of breast- proliferating slums of third world feeding. World Health Assembly cities. adopts a WHO and Unicef sponsored tv code calling for end of advertising of infant formulas and other promo- tional practices that might discour- UNICEF 1201.'85i'Tavior age breast-feeding. Emergencies: helping on both sides

days later he flew to Lagos, the tablish a network of child feeding sta- Nigerian capital, to launch talks that put tions in schools, churches, and town his diplomatic skills to the most delicate halls no more than three miles distant test. Labouisse managed to convince from one another. A careful assessment Gowan of Unicef's exclusively hu- was made of every child's nutritional manitarian concern and its lack of condition, and not a particle of food partiality to the secessionist cause. was squandered. At Ifekwunigwe's Auguste Lindt, the distinguished emis- request Unicef developed a special sary' of the International Committee of product called K-Mix-2. based on milk the Red Cross (ICRC), arrived in Lagos derivatives and sucrose, which was simultaneously. Negotiations to open mixed with palm oil and water and fed overland routes of supply proved fruit- to critically undernourished children less, but in September the ICRC was able through a nasal tube. to start an airlift of six planes a day into Finally, on January 10th, 1970. the the beleaguered zone from the Por- resistance in the enclave collapsed. tuguese territory of Fernando Po. Labouisse flew immediately to Lagos Another mercy airlift, organized by to assess the needs for postwar rehabili- church relief agencies, began flying in tation. The Nigerian Government was supplies from Sao Tome. The Federal bitter about the conduct of many relief authorities expressed their displeasure, agencies which it felt had sided with the ICEF 566V'6BSheetian but did not attack the planes as they had breakaway easterners. All foreign The late I960's were the years of the threatened. Unicef foodstuffs and journalists and almost all relief and Bihar drought in India, the Nigerian medical supplies went in through both mission personnel were ordered out. civil war. and the war in Viet Nam. channels. But Unicef, thanks to Labouisse's care- Whatever UniceFs intention to concen- The emotions aroused by the gaunt ful diplomacy, his almost obsessional trate on development co-operation, bodies and glazed expressions of shunning of the limelight over the past disasters crept up or burst upon it, Biafran children who stared out from 18 months, his refusal to try to exert demanding a response. In the case of newspaper photographs fueled a war of pressure on the government through the Nigerian civil war, Unicef, because words among agencies, press, govern- public pronouncements, was still held of its mandate to help children in need ments and international officials. in favour. Among overseas humanitar- regardless of political considerations, Views differed about what Unicef ian organizations, Unicef was the only was the only UN organization in a po- should say publicly. The feelings of one permitted to send people into the sition to send assistance to the starving many national committees ran so high, ex-secessionist territory and to con- children of the breakaway Eastern and press interest was so keen, that it tribute significantly to the post-war Region - the famous "Biafra Babies". was hard for Unicef to restrict itself to relief and reconstruction effort. The exercise required a great deal of only the most circumspect statements. quiet diplomacy. Labouisse's view was the less said the Nigeria'a Eastern Region, under better. The diplomatic caution, which the leadership of Colonel Odumegwa marked his directional style, paid divi- Ojukwu. tried to secede from the rest dends which some found hard to com- of the country in May 1967. styling it- prehend in the passion of the moment. self the republic of Biafra. It took the The worst period for the children was Federal Government under General in late 1968 when malnutrition reached Yakubu Gowan more than two and epidemic proportions. Thanks to the one half years to end the breakaway imaginative reponse of Dr. Aaton Ifek- through a war that in its final stages wunigwe, head of Biafran paediatric relied increasingly on the age-old services, and a Dutch nutritionist, strategies of blockade and siege. Isabel Keeniggracht, its ravages were In July 1968 Unicef's Executive kept to a minimum, though less than Director, Henry Labouisse, appealed half the estimated requirements of for funds to help children and mothers emergency foodstuffs were reaching "on both sides of the conflict". A few the area. Ifekwunigwe managed to es- ICEF S659

24 ttnicef Neivx NTB porters "for-instances": examples of what their contributions might do. By 1964, how- ever, FAO'S Freedom from Hunger Cam- paign had been underway for four years : FFHC committees could and did "adopt" specific food and nutrition projects; and some of these same projects were also sup- ported by Unicef. In that year the Board met for the first time in a developing country, in Bangkok. A number of committees sent ob- servers, and they took the opportunity of visiting Unicef-aided projects in Thailand and other Asian countries. The Board, act- ing on Executive Director Maurice Pate's recommendation, agreed to a formula whereby committees could "adopt" parts of approved projects for special fund-raising. The adopted project arrangement worked well and was immensely useful in helping Unicef meet its expanded income targets in years to come. Tragically, it was the recrudescence of emergencies, natural and man-made, begin- ning in the latter part of the 1960s thai gave the committees a chance to up their fund- raising by appealing in the most direct terms to people's humanitarian instincts. Photos of starving children and accounts of massive airlifts of food and drugs began to make the Henry Labouisse. Unicefs secant} Executive Director, collecting the Nohel Peace Prize headlines in connection with the Bihar fam- in Oslo, awarded to Unicef in 1965. Zena Hannan, Chairman of Unicef s Executive ine in India (1966), the Nigerian civil war Board, accompanied him. (1968), the East Pakistan cyclone and refu- gee emergency (1970-71), the Sahelian and Ethiopian droughts in Africa {1973-75) and earthquakes in Nicaragua (1972) and tribulions. With its new emphasis on assisted countries; Unicef's own dedicated Guatemala (1975). The magnitude of some viewing children's needs in relation to na- staff, especially its field staff; its sister agen- of these emergencies was unprecedented : tional development, the organization was on cies in the UN family; and the volunteers before the end of the East Pakistan refugee the threshold of a much larger future as a from all walks of life who were involved in emergency, 10 million people, most of them fully-fledged member of the international the work of the national committees and women and children, had fled what is now development community. HansConzetl. the affiliated NCOS. Bangladesh to take shelter in refugee camps energetic leader of the national committee It was Pate's successor as Executive in India. and a member of parliament, persuaded all Director, Henry R. Labouisse. an American With its concern for mothers and children the parties in the Swiss parliament to sign diplomat with a distinguished record in hu- coupled with its widespread practical ex- a proposition sent to Oslo that Unicef should manitarian and development aid going back perience in supply and transport manage- be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. In to Marshall Plan days, who went to Oslo in ment under difficult conditions. Unicef late 1965 the nomination bore fruit. November 1965 to accept the Nobel Prize became involved in the emergencies, even Sadly, Maurice Pate, who had guided for Unicef. Pointing out thai Alfred Nobel if its main business was now development Unicef for almost 20 years, did not live to had himself been a sickly child, who sur- assistance. The national committees played see the day of Unicef s greatest honour. On vived only because his parents had done a crucial role in raising the large contribu- January 19. while taking a quiet walk, he everything for him, Labouisse wondered tions required by Unicef to do its part. was stricken by a massive heart attack. That what his fate would have been if he had been night, he died at the age of only 70. Pate had born, not in 1833 in Norway, but in 1965 in The great prize done more than anyone else to earn (he a village in Asia. Africa, or Latin America. Nobel Peace Prize for Unicef, but he would The statistics of his slim chances. 1964 could be described as a "boom year" have been the first to point out that his con- Labouisse said, "make us face the stagger- for Unicef. A record number of greeting tribution could have amounted to nothing ing waste of human energy and talent which cards was sold, 40 million, and govern- without the assistance of many helping drains, year in and year out. the very nations ments were gradually increasing their con- hands : governments of both donor and which need the most". D

Unicef Nc\\'x 25 Chapter Six: 1970 Water: the spring of life

Drought and flood emergencies of the late 1960s and early 1970s in South Asia and Africa propelled Vnicef deeper into the water business. The purpose of rural water supply and sanitation: better child health.

At the height of the drought in Bihar in 1967, attained tremendous importance over the drought and flood emergencies of the late Unicef airlifted 11 HalcoTiger'drillingrigs next decade : the provision of clean drink- sixties and early seventies changed the pic- from England to India. The Halcos were ing water to villages in many countries and ture, launching Unicef into the water sup- powerful air-hammer rigs, representing a in a great variety of circumstances. ply business in a big way. The devastating new trend - even a revolution - in well- The critical effect of clean water and san- drought in Bihar threatened to drive thou- drilling technology. They could drill a com- itation on the health and welfare of children sands of villagers whose wells had run dry plete water-well through hundreds of feet of had long been recognized; as early as 1953 into relief shelters. The hard-rock drilling hard rock in hours. Within two months the Unicef cautiously entered this field, help- rigs were the answer. The crash programme new rigs had brought life-saving water to ing provide wells, standpipes, and latrines to train people in their use and maintenance 222 villages in the states of Bihar and Uttar to health centres and schools, hut large-scale found Unicef back in the stride of get-it- Pradesh. Their deployment ushered in a public works were seen as too expensive and done, engineering-based assistance - the major thrust in Unicef assistance which inappropriate for Unicef assistance. The kind of approach which had characterized its milk conservation work, and at which it excelled. By 1970 a nation-wide village

UNICEF 1158/B4/Murrav-Lee water supply programme for hard-rock arid areas in India was launched. Unicef sup- plied 100 high-speed drilling rigs with the aim of bringing clean drinking water to 12,000 Indian villages by 1974. Early in 1972 the 10 million people who had sought refuge in India during the civil war which divided the two wings of Pak- istan, returned home to the new state of Bangladesh. This emergency also led to large-scale Unicef involvement in village water supply : a programme to sink 100.000 new tube wells and rehabilitate 60.000 others. Here, in the vast Ganges-Brahma- putra delta, water was close to the surface but heavily polluted. Clean water lay 150 feet down, below layers of alluvjul soil Using a simple method called "sludging" drillers flushed and pumped a galvanized pipe deep into the soft soil. A village well complete with small handpump could be installed for about $150. Other disasters, like the great 1973-74 drought in Africa's Sahel region south of The demand for better and more convenient domestic water throughout the developing the Sahara, saw Unicef importing rigs and world kepi the water programme expanding. The installation of an India Mark II hand piping, training engineers, and setting up pump assured a safe water supply for an African village. maintenance workshops in more and more'

26 Uniftrf Ne\vs 1CEF 7476/Hassan

TJie devastating effects of cyclones emphasized the critical effect of clean water and sanitation on the health and welfare of children.

countries. Water supply projects became The technological challenge sturdier handpump. They checked out a popular and began to figure increasingly in promising model developed by a Church of regular country programmes, emergencies Projects like the one in India included two Scotland mission in Maharashtra. Then, in apart. Not all were based on well-drilling. widely separated levels of technology. The association with the government-owned In mountainous Nepal in Asia, and Malawi big rigs represented the latest in modern en- company of Richardson and Cruddas in in Africa, Um'cef supplied miles of plastic gineering and cost several hundred thousand Madras, they came up with a better ver- piping for gravity-fed schemes. Trenching, dollars each. The handpumps fitted overthe sion ; the India 'Mark if welded-steel hand- digging and pipe laying was done volun- hundreds of village wells drilled by each rig pump. Extremely sturdy, yet requiring little tarily by village self-help. If disasters had were simple manual pumps costing very physical strength to operate, the India Mark triggered Unicefs entry into water supply little. Ironically, it was the simple machinery 11 was to become the prototype of Unicef- on a grand scale, the demand for better and that gave the most trouble. A spot survey supplied handpumps throughout the world. more convenient domestic water through- carried out in two Indian states in 1974 re- It incorporated many special design fea- out the developing world, emergency or no vealed that, though the well-drilling targets tures, including 'child-proofing': village emergency, kept ilexpanding. Indeed, few had been attained, three quarters of the children often treated a village handpump Unicef-supported programmes attained handpumps had broken down. The cast-iron as their adventure playground. Eventually such quick popularity among recipient and models were poor quality copies of old- more than 600,000 were installed in Indian donor groups alike. The drama of the fashioned European and American hand- villages and many more were exported to drilling rig and the spout of water coming pumps designed for use by a single family Africa and the Caribbean. from the rock, the excitement of the cap- and were not sturdy enough to stand up to Whatever their qualities, even the Mark tured mountain stream running freely from use by an entire village. us required maintenance and repair. In the village standpipe, had an irresistible Unicef and its government partners be- Tirunelveli district, at the far southern tip appeal. gan to tackle the problem of developing a of the Indian peninsula, an energetic state

Unii-efNewx These schools were intended as the Education beyond the classroom vanguard of learning through doing' for entire village communities. Chil- dren's studies in science and the envi- ronment included practical work on the school farm, where lessons about better use of fertilizers and the control of pests could be put into practice. But what of the large number of chil- dren, especially girls, whoneverwent to school or who dropped out too soon to learn anything useful? In some rural areas more than 90 per cent of girls reached maturity without learning how to read the label on a bottle of patent medicine or write a child's name on a health card. Based on recommenda- tions of a study commissioned by the Executive Board in 1971, Unicef turned its attention to non-formal channels of education outside the classroom. The study, known as "The Coombs' Report" after its principal author, Philip Coombs, listed a minimum package of attitudes, skills and knowledge that any young person needed to acquire to cope successfully with the world and its ways : literacy and numeracy; a scien- tific understanding of his or her envi- ronment; and functional knowledge about raising a family, earning a living, and taking part in civil life.This basic package. Coombs and his colleagues believed, could be acquired outside the ICEF 9138/Thomas classroom. In Colombia, for example, In the post-colonial era, strenuous those who got through school found it thousands of campesinos tuned into efforts by the developing countries to increasingly difficult to get jobs; em- radio broadcasts by Accion Cultural bring education within reach of more ployment opportunities had grown Popular, beamed to remote areas where of their populations showed results : more slowly than the number of appli- group leaders passed out simple text- the proportion of children in school cants. books and led discussions. Over the doubled in a generation. Ordinary Unicefs initial assistance to educa- next few years, with Unicefs advisory people had a strong faith in schooling, tion was oriented to improving chil- and financial support, youth clubs, for they could see that those with some dren's knowledge about good health radio stations, women's groups, credit education had prospered most in the and sound nutrition, and gradually ex- unions, community newspapers, and early years of independence, It was not panded to include pre- and primary co-operative societies opened up new unusual for communities to raise their schools as well as teacher training. channels for non-formal education. By own funds to build classrooms, and As Unicef entered education in a bigger the late 1970s more and more govern- many families skimped and saved to way - commitments rose from $3.5 ments began to use them, recognizing put one or two children - usually boys million for 1960-64 to $18.4 million for that many children, adolescents, and - through school. But the number of 1974 - it concentrated increasingly on young mothers could only be reached children still not receiving a basic mini- new paths to learning, in and out of the by these alternative means. The class- mum of primary education was esti- formal school system. rooms of the developing world had not mated at several hundred million in the An example of this approach could been abandoned : rather, many had early 1970s. Meanwhile, educational be seen in community schools, an ex- been co-opted as part of a wider edu- expansion had reached a plateau, and periment strongly supported by Unicef. cational effort.

2K Unicef News official named M. Francis, who had a gift would not be profound. This was particu- nol been touched." Health Education? "Just for mobilizing village people, worked out larly true in the case of the gastro-intestinal about impossible to obtain a collaboration a three-tier system of maintenance. The infections and parasitic infestations rampant between health educators and engineers." system was based on young men selected as among young children. In 1977 a UN conference in Mar del Plata. village 'handpump caretakers'. Trained to By 1974, Unicefs expenditure on water Argentina, proclaimed 1981-1990 as the In- grease bolts and tighten nuts, the caretakers and sanitation had reached $12 million a ternational Drinking Water and Sanitation referred more complicated problems up the year. Every time water policy came up for Decade and elaborated a $144 billion action line to a block engineer, who in turn could discussion, lip service was paid to the need plan to provide clean water and sanitation call on the services of a district mobile re- for more attention to the sanitation compo- to everyone in the world. Global recession pair team. Thanks to Francis' charisma and nent of this dyad. But in practice, neither and declining commodity prices put a quick dedication, the programme was an out- village communities, public health engi- end to any hopes that the action plan could standing success in his home state of Tamil neering departments, nor Unicef donors be quickly realised, though the World Nadu. Throughout India, similar efforts, showed great interest in schemes to confine Bank and a number of major bilateral aid combined with the Mark us sturdiness, suc- human excreta to places which minimized programmes increased their investments. ceeded in minimizing the number of hand- the hazards it posed. Progress was made in As far as Unicef was concerned, with a pump breakdowns; and other countries, developing improved pit latrines - some great deal already accomplished, the chal- such as Indonesia, eventually set up similar designs enabled them to double as fertilizer lenge of the Water Decade was how to ob- maintenance systems. production units - but acceptability re- tain the maximum health advantages from As the drinking water effort spread, mained a problem. In one Latin American the new sources of water which were doing Unicefs master drillers and other tech- country, officials used water as a bait, re- so much to release women from back- nicians often found themselves working fusing to dig a community well unless three- breaking toil and improve village life in under extraordinarily difficult conditions. quarters of the villagers had already built other ways. In Ethiopia, VladoZakula from Yugoslavia latrines. Householders complied, but when Together with its partners in water depart- camped beside his rig every night in areas public health people later toured the area ments around the world. Unicef had come where guerrilla activity added to the normal they found the latrines used mainly as to realize that water and sanitation projects hazards of drilling operations in remote chicken coops or larders for the cool stor- could only work well when communities mountainous or desert regions. Fausto age of beer. At the Executive Board meet- were involved from the outset in planning Bertoni, an Italian who joined Unicefs staff ing of 1974. John Grun. Regional Director them, siting them, and managing their use in Afghanistan, became an almost legendary for South Central Asia, stated the case quite and maintenance. People's participation figure in villages from the Sudan to the boldly in connection with the India rural wa- was the key to making the lives of women Punjab. Men like these trained crews of ter programme. Functioning so well in other and children not only less onerous but local engineers to master modern drilling respects. Sanitation? "Excreta disposal has cleaner, pleasanter. and healthier. D technology and form the backbone of their countries' water engineering departments,

UNICEF 342/83 Hilsurn Water and health

The reason why village people in develop- ing countries responded so enthusiastically to water projects was because they so badly needed an adequate water supply close to their homes. Women and children who previously had spent hours each day fetch- ing water from distances of many miles no longer had to suffer such back-breaking drudgery. This made a tremendous differ- ence to women's workload, since they al- ready had so much else to do, from raising all the family food, to collecting fuel for cooking and warmth, and trading in the marketplace. But Unicef had entered the world of water for one primary reason : its impact on child health. Within a few years, unfortunately, it became evident that with- out equal attention to 'environmental sani- tation' - a euphamism for the safe disposal of human excreta - the specific impact of Water and sanitation projects could only work well when communities were involved better water supplies on childhood disease from the outset. A VIP {ventilated improved pit) latrine is constructed in rural Tanzania.

Unicef News 29 Chapter Seven: 1975 The search for alternatives

In the early 1970s, the international development community became disenchanted with the old paths to progress. Unicef evolved a Strategy for Basic Services, and put its weight behind WHO'S drive for "Health for All by the Year 2000"

In September 1978. delegates representing oflife, including the poorest villagers and ni/,ed the value of herbal and other tradi- (he medical establishments of 134 countries shanty-town dwellers, "have the righi and tional remedies. met at a WHO/Unicef sponsored conference duty to participate individually and collec- This startling reversal of medical ortho- on primary health care in Alma Ata, capi- tively in the planning and implementation doxy was part of a widespread search for tal of'the Soviet Union's Kazakh SSR. They of their health care". The conference also en- alternative approaches to social and eco- a (Tinned unanimously that health is a fun- dorsed closerco-opcration with traditional nomic problems that took place in the 1970s. damental human righi and that nol only medical practitioners, formerly looked This search was a reaction to the failed ex- medical professionals bul people in all walks upon askance by most doctors, and recog- pectations of the UN'S first Decade of De- velopment. In terms of world economy as a whole, the 1960s had indeed been a de- velopment decade, but at its end the gap between rich and poor countries, and be- tween rich and poor people, had signifi- cantly widened. The conventional economic wisdom, that the benefits of economic growth would "trickle down" to the poor, had proved sadly flawed. A "poverty cur- tain" had descended, and Unicef and other members of the international aid com- munity began to search hard for new ways to pierce it. The plight of the poorest developing countries was aggravated in the early 1970s by a series of disasters - those that could be attributed both to "acts of God" (drought. Mood, earthquake) and to "acts of man" (war and civil violence). Economic dislocations, such as the ten-fold rise in the price of crude oil. hit the weaker countries hardest. Unicef had helped many of these countries develop their networks of mobile clinics in rural areas; now they could hardly afford the fuel to keep these services operating. At the 1974 meeting of the Executive Board, the Paki- stan delegate reported that his country would spend more than half its export earn- ings simply on importing food, fertilizers, medicines and other essentials. "To say the least," he warned, "the outlook is bleak for Despite natural disasters or a mountainous terrain, villages benefit from their the children of Pakistan and other severely couniryx expanding health programmes. affected countries". At the Executive Direc-

30 Unicef News ICEF 8a52'Nagaojan

Unicef trains lay people as irtulirional birth titteritkittts. \\'ht> make vital contributions to their country's health.

tor's suggestion, the Board declared a "Child tion efforts. In mass campaigns against damental concept was that all human soci- Emergency", calling on the world commu- yaws and malaria, lay personnel had been eties have developed ways of providing for nity to help [he children in the worst-hit widely used to spray houses, collect blood- their food supply, water needs, health and countries with extra assistance for nutrition, slides, and keep records. Originally, the education. All cultures made provision for including growing and storing food at ihe genesis of involving lay members of the someone to assist mothers during childbirth. village level, and for health services. community in such schemes was the lack of and to care for the sick. Equally, they had trained professionals and the comparatively systems of raising and educating youngsters Learning from experience low cost. Now it began to appear lhat, be- to be useful members of society. There cause of the confidence of communities in was, therefore, nothing essentially new in At the same time. Unicef began to examine "their own" person, they actually did a bel- proposing that community resources should the wealth of experience it had gained with ter job. Unicef s by now extensive field staff be relied upon to meet the needs of poor government partners in various parts of the were beginning to record a great variety of people in the 1970s. world. From the early 1950s, Unicef helped promising examples of what could be done to train traditional birth attendants in coun- through community action. Community participation : the key tries like Indonesia. Thailand and the Philip- The idea of attacking poverty by helping pines. Taught ihe rudiments ofparturilional people meet their own basic needs was gain- Community participation was seen as the hygiene and out filled with Unicef midwife ing ground. It was widely promoted by the key element in Unicef s basic services kits ihese "granny midwives", many of them International Labour Organisation and strategy. An essential feature was the selec- illiterate, earned a new reputation and a some major donor organizations such as the tion by the community of one or more of its new status: existing skills were now com- World Bank, were beginning to put some members to serve as community workers bined with modern practices, such as using weight behind it. In 1976 Unicef, which had after brief practical training, repeated and sterile scissors to cut the umbilical cord. been working closely with WHO in elaborat- extended through refresher courses. "Many This was not the only example where lay ing alternative approaches to health care, simple measures thai can improve condi- people with a little special training could came up with a new programme philosophy: tions oflife in the rural countryside or poor make a vital contribution to health or nutri- "A Strategy for Basic Services". The fun- urban areas are well-known,"Unicef noted.

VnicefNews II Food and nutrition: the most basic need of all

ICEF 9230/lsaac In spite of Unicefs new emphasis on fertilizers and therefore the cost of the dietary problems of underfed Primary Health Care, no one had for- growing it, exacerbated mankind's children in most parts of the develop- gotten the hungry child - the ratson fears for the smallest and most vulner- ing world had long been recognized. d'etre for Unicefs creation. In the early able members of its family. Local production of high-protein 1970s, the sudden shortage of food in By this time, the fallacy that invest- processed weaning foods had also en- the world, and the rise in the price of ing in dairy development would solve countered stumbling blocks : placing a

8 UnicefNtws factory between people and their food of the attack on malnutrition shifted. daily meal, and kept records of all the supply put the products out of financial It was now obvious that the attack on young chiJdren, watching out for the reach of poor families. Attention had hunger and malnutrition among chil- underweight and ready with advice for shifted to "applied nutrition" : helping dren was inseparable from the spread mothers about what to do to give their villages, schools, and families establish of mother and child health services. children a dietary cushion against dis- vegetable plots, fish ponds, fruit or- Not only was the new thinking ease. This scheme, among others, chards, and poultry houses. Great governed by the recognition that the showed that villagers did not compart- stress was laid on the value of animal "protein gap" was a skewed way of mentalize their problems in tidy sec- protein. Western notions of what looking at the problem, but the relation- toral ways corresponding to a govern- constituted a good diet for children ship between disease and malnutrition ment's administrative structure, and predominated. The problem of child in young children was better under- those trying to help them would be wise malnutrition in the developing world stood. A disease like measles automat- not to do so either. was diagnosed as a ''protein gap". ically triggered loss of weight; this Now the nutritionists began to see Even during the heyday of the pro- debility predisposed the child to the hungry child with new eyes. Instead tein push, revisionist voices were respiratory and diarrhoea! infections. of coming with their own solutions, raised. Workers at India's National Meanwhile, a poor diet made it far they began to try and help mothers Institute of Nutrition in Hyderabad more likely thai a child would pick up recognize and overcome malnutrition reported that they could find no signs infectious diseases in the first place. by means within their reach, physi- of protein malnutrition among young The compound effect on a child of the cally and financially. The activities that children raised on traditional family interlocking web of sickness and poor Unicef began to stress owed much diets - quite low in protein by western diet could be catastrophic. to previous experience of helping standards - provided they got enough Primary health care, built upon the women's groups. In many countries food to eat. These findings were con- community worker, opened up the women were the principal producers of firmed in different parts of the world prospect of dealing with health needs food, and held responsible for almost for a great variety of family diets : those and nutritional needs alongside one an- everything related to household food built around rice and lentils, or maize other. In 1975 Dr. Jean Mayer and a management. Increasingly, in the and beans, for example. team from the Harvard School of swelling city slums, they were also Specific diseases of dietary defi- Public Health presented to the Unicef becoming their children's sole pro- ciency could be found in many coun- Executive Board a report on nutrition vider. Thus female literacy, income- tries. These included the unsightly priorities in the developing countries. generating projects for women, and swellings of goitre caused by a lack of They strongly endorsed the new com- measures to relieve drudgery and iodine in the diet; and shortage of vita- munity worker approach, emphasizing help them gain a better purchase on the min A, which affected the sight of that to all intents and purposes primary means to feed their children were in- young children, sometimes leading to health care and primary nutritional care creasingly seen as the way to attack permanent blindness. Unicef helped were one and the same. malnutrition at its roots. countries deaJ with these through prac- Among the pioneers in the new In the early 1980s Unicef and WHO tical measures such as the iodization of integrated approach was an Indian embarked on a special five-year Joint local salt supplies, and provision of couple, both physicians, Drs. Mabelle Nutrition Support Programme for vitamin A capsules for health centres. and Rajanikant Arole. They began an countries, particularly in Africa, where Elsewhere, except for the outright experimental project in 1970 to provide child malnutrition was particularly hunger and undernutrition caused by comprehensive health care for a com- acute. Family health and nutrition acute poverty or by drought or disas- munity of 40,000 people based at education, the home preparation of ter, it became increasingly evident Jamkhed in Maharashtra State. The weaning foods, credit for women's co- that it was feasible to give children a Aroles decided to train and employ operative enterprises, and a general nutritionally-balanced diet from blend- middle-aged village women as health strengthening of community involve- ing locally available foodstuffs. Igno- auxiliaries; but as they talked to the ment in primary health care were rance was the major enemy of good village councils about their plans they among the activities encompassed. For nutrition : mothers had to understand realized that the villagers' priorities Unicef and its partners, nutrition was which foods in what combination were not health, but food and water. becoming harder to distinguish as a would assure their children's growth Interpreting "health" in a broad sense, separate field of action, not because it and good health. they therefore began with food; com- was being ignored but because it was When Unicef began to argue for the munal gardens were organized, and being more closely integrated into Basic Services Strategy and Primary kitchens set up for under-fives feeding. health and other basic services. Health Care in the late 1970s, the focus The health auxiliaries supervised the

Unicef News 33 ICEF 9266iThomas The new health care model

Out of these observations and del iberalions came the concept of Primary Health Care as the only feasible way to reach WHO'S goal of "Health for All by the Year 2000". When health dignitaries from all over the world, together with representatives of agencies and various other "powers and principali- ties" assembled at Alma Alain 1978, it was to consider a strategy that was both vision- ary and based on an impressive body of evidence. The main document for the con- ference was a joint WHO/Unicef report which included an indictment of those trends in post-World War II medicine which had equated "the improvement of health... with the provision of medical services dis- pensed by a growing number of specialists, using narrow medical technologies for the benefit of the privileged few". Primary Health Care as a new goal and model for health services was endorsed vir- tually by acclamation at Alma Ata. The next Pakistani mothers learn the importance of growth charts ami regular weighing which challenge was to transform the rhetoric into is so vital to Priniurv Health Cure. reality. It was recognized from the begin- ning that the reality would have to take somewhat different forms in different coun- tries and different regions within countries. "Information about improving dwellings, paramedical "barefoot doctors", necessi- Sometimes village health workers' tasks which local foods provide better nutrition tated a new look at the whole health delivery were primarily curative "first aid", in others and how to store them, the need for keep- question. It was WHO which assumed the primarily preventative; on occasion, though ing the household clean, why good sanita- lead, thus giving the new approach the this was frowned on in principle, village- tion is important to health, how to pipe water cachet of the profession itself. level workers were carried at low rates of from the mountainside or protect walls, all Reviewing the development of mother remuneration on ministry payrolls. For the these and many others are the subjects of and child health services, the WHO/Unicef full range of basic services, including pri- basic education most needed by villagers or Joint Committee on Health Policy took up mary health care, "entry points" varied con- new urban dwellers.. .Village or community the matter of alternative approaches in siderably, depending on local conditions and workers not only provide minimal services, earnest, accumulating examples of the attitudes: it could be the provision of clean but serve as the network for conveying this effectiveness of laymen and laywomen in water in one locality, famine relief measures kind of basic knowledge to the people."The community health care. What WHO and in another, better preparation and storage of role of officials from ministries of health, Unicef were looking for was instances food in the home in a third. agriculture, social welfare, and public where preventive and curative care was be- Both the basic services strategy and the works, unable alone to reach more than a ing provided to at least 80 per cent of a given primary health care model emphasized one minority of the people directly, would be to target group at a cost that could be afforded essential fundamental; community parti- support and back-up community efforts. even in a country with limited resources. cipation. Perhaps, as some critics main- The basic services idea generated con- Successful examples from Bangladesh, tained, the pendulum had swung too far : siderable interest, along with fears in some China. Cuba. India. Indonesia and Tanza- certainly "top-down" initiatives could not be quarters that it implied second-rate services nia, showed that common to all was the use ruled out altogether if the potential benefits for the poorest countries. It seemed at first of a minimally-trained resident of the village of modern medicine were to be widely real- that health might be the toughest nut to or community, often called a "primary ized. But the principles outlined in Unicefs crack because of the medical establish- health worker". Such workers were chosen Strategy for Basic Services and enumerated ment's strong adherence to high standards by their neighbours; they were trained lo- at Alma Ata would henceforth guide of professional care; also the mystique that cally in specialized tasks and simplified Unicefs actions on a broad front and give medicine men - from the witch doctor to techniques which they carried out with the substance to the old bromide about helping the open-heart surgeon - so profitably ex- support of the health network. They were people help themselves, D ploited. But experience in various parts of given some remuneration, either in cash or the world, including China with its famous kind, by their own community.

34 Unicef News Chapter Eight: 1979 The Year of the Child

There had been other "Years" before: for population, women, anti-apartheid... But none captured the imagination of mankind like the International Year of the Child.

UN PHOTO 139681,'Gram

A: the UN General Assembly, New York, a gala concert was held featuring a galaxy of pop singers to celebrate IYC.

On January 9, 1979, the General Assembly Summer - gave Unicef the rights to the shows that it was time for grappling with of the United Nations in New York was songs they sang. Between the telecasts and many of the outstanding problems facing packed with an audience assembled for an the album sales, "A Gift of Song - Music children in different societies. Some com- unfamiliar occasion : a gala "Gift of Song" for Unieef" raised $4 million, launching IYC missions undertook a national appraisal of by a galaxy of pop stars to herald Interna- in truly celebratory style. children's situations (Guinea-Bissau, Saudi tional Year of the Child (IYC), The concert IYC was the occasion of a great outpour- Arabia), studied their nutritional condition was telecast to 60 countries and seen by ing of statements, resolutions, and celebra- (China, Haiti, Oman), set out to eradicate 250 million people. The artists who per- tions in favour of children, but it was also polio (Malawi) or immunize newborns formed - including Abba, the Bee Gees, considerably more than this. The briefest (Bhutan). Others counted the children of Earth Wind and Fire, Olivia Newton-John. glance at activities undertaken by the 148 migrant labourers (Luxembourg), set up John , Rod Stewart, and Donna national IYC commissons around the world centres for "latchkey" children (UK), or

Unict'fNeu'x JS The Kampuchea crisis During 1979, as reports of impend- UMICEF 1358;ai/Danois ing famine in the Kampuchean country- side began to circulate, Unicef tried to persuade the new government to allow it back in. Finally, in July Unicef and the International Committee of the Red Cross received a joint invitation from Phnom Penh. The two-man iCRC/Unicef mission was stunned by the signs of depriva- tion and suffering it encountered. As many as 1.5 million people were said to have perished either as a result of war, starvation, lack of medical care, or forced labour. Agricultural produc- tion - in what had long been one of the world's most fertile rice-growing areas-was at an all-time low. Most of the remaining population (of four million or more) were trying to re- establish the remnants of family life. and an estimated 650,000 were fleeing towards the Thai border. It was feared by some that the people of Kampuchea were facing virtual extinction. Between 1975 and 1979, the Khmer Help from the outside was critically The relief programme to save the Rouge carried out a revolutionary ex- needed, but there were political com- Kampuchean people was the largest periment within Cambodia which left plications : the new regime in Phnom and most complete operation of its kind the country's institutions in ruins and its Penh was not recognized as legitimate ever to be mounted. Governments and people in trauma. The Khmer leaders by the majority of UN member states. organizations all over the world con- emptied the cities, dismantling the Once again, as in the case of the tributed to the effort, in which Unicef country's administrative structure, out- Nigerian civil war, the only organiza- and the ICRC played the leading role. lawing religious observance and learn- tions unaffected by the politicai line-up Some $634 million in assistance was ing. The most trivial infringements of were the Red Cross and Unicef. provided between October 1979 and the rules - wearing eyeglasses, reading During the past generation of turmoil December 1981. Inside Kampuchea the a book, eating at the wrong time of in Indo-China, Unicef had done what programme included the distribution of day - became subject to fearful punish- it could to alleviate the suffering of chil- 300,000 tons of food aid as well as ment, even death. dren of any and every side. During the thousands of tons of rice seed, fer- In January 1979 the Vietnamese 1960s, Unicef had repeatedly sought to tilizers and pesticides. Key logistical army entered Phnom Penh, the capital, extend assistance to North Vietnam as support included the supply of motor forcing out the Khmer Rouge regime well as South. In 1969, Hanoi finally vehicles and river transport, handling and installing another in its place. signalled its willingness to accept equipment and fuel. Medical and Khmer Rouge forces retreated to the Unicef supplies through the Red Cross. school supplies were also provided. northwest, waging guerilla war against During the next few years Unicef en- It would probably be an exaggeration Vietnamese forces. Within Kampu- voys visited Hanoi more often, and in to say that this programme alone chea, people tried to pull their lives 1975 an office was set up. During the brought Kampuchea back from the together again in a country where com- same period, a mission was established brink of mass starvation, but it played munications, schools, health centres, in Phnom Penh; but support for regu- an important part in helping the Kam- even money, had been eliminated or lar health and education services for puchean people survive and recuperate destroyed. In the northwest, growing children soon gave way to emergency from their years of hardship. Because numbers of refugees sought sanctuary relief as the war intensified. When the logistic problems were so overwhelm- in Thailand. Khmer Rouge took over two years ing, much of the assistance, including The plight of the Kampuchean peo- later, Unicef was expelled, along with first aid, was distressingly slow to ple aroused world-wide sympathy. other international organizations. reach its destination. Deploying their

36 Unicef News \*& UNICEF 580/McUughlin the brunt ofthe work for a''year" for chil- dren would fall on Unicef. detlecting its remarkable capacity for survival, ihc energies and resources from its existing Kampuchean villagers managed to programmes. But with backing by many of weather a miserable harvest in early the non-governmental organizations as- 1980 and gradually put their rice sociated with Unicef, the idea gained in- paddies back into cultivation. Spot sur- creasing support among some countries on veys in rural areas in late 1980 revealed the Executive Board. In 1976. on the pockets of malnutrition but no real star- recommendation of the Board, the General vation; in 1981 the harvest doubled. Assembly proclaimed 1979 as International The international programme under- Year of the Child, pinned their efforts and provided seed at the critical time. Not meant to be a Unicef "year" Among the refugees in the north- west, on both sides of the Thai border, While Unicef was to be the lead agency for hundreds of thousands of people dur- ivc. the year was never conceived as a ing 1979 and 1980 remained totally Unicef or a UN show. The style of its ob- dependent on relief. Unicef, icRc.and servance was to be left to each country to the World Food Programme provided decide. There was to be no big international food, shelter, water, and medical care, IYC conference : those held in other "years" most delivered by Unicef convoys. One had often led to political wrangling and criti- border camp became the site of a "land cism for their costs. The General Assembly's bridge" : thousands of Kampucheans Unicefs GoodwillAmbassad&r Peter IVC resolution emphasized that it should be who had trekked to the border on foot. Ustinov was most active during i\c. a time for studying children's needs and by bicycle or in ox-cans were given 20 launching programmes to meet them. In a kilos of rice each and went back into the broader sense, it should provide "a frame- country to plant it in villages still under work of advocacy" for children. Khmer Rouge control. street children (Colombia): yet others tried In 1977 a small IYC secretariat was set Unicef had been appointed United to do more for orphans (Chad. Philippines), up under Unicefs auspices headed by Dr. Nations "lead agency" for Kampuchea the children of nomads (Botswana), the vic- Estefania Atdaba-Lim, former Philippine relief operations in September 1979 and tims of war (Nigeria. Lebanon). Many ran Minister of Social Services and an energetic continued to play that role until the end campaigns to start pre-schools. abolished and enthusiastic spokeswoman for children. of 1981. It was not altogether a welcome elementary school fees, or focused on the Dr. Lim was to undertake a grueling travel assignment, since it stretched Unicefs care ofthe handicapped. By any reckoning, schedule to over 65 countries in the next responsibilities far beyond its normal the efforts and achievements were extra- two and a half years, enlisting the support mandate for children. Under the partic- ordinarily wide-ranging. of heads of state and senior officials and ularly complex circumstances of the International Year of the Child was the nudging national IYC commissions into Kampuchean crisis. Unicef had no brainchild of Canon Joseph Moerman, action. By then the magic ofthe year was choice. In Phnom Penh, working with Secretary-General ofthe International Cath- beginning to show and support was rapidly a regime unrecognized by the UN. it olic Child Bureau in Geneva, who first building up. In mid-1977 85 non-govern- provided the necessary umbrella for floated the idea in international circles in mental organizations formed a special com- assistance from FAO, WFP and others. 1973. At that time many people in the UN, mittee for IYC, headed by Canon Moerman. By the end of 1981. the emergency at any rate, felt there had been a glut of Their network grew rapidly ; the total was over: two-thirds of those who fled "Years" - for refugees, population, number of voluntary organizations and their to the Thai border had returned to their women, anti-apartheid - which had pro- local branches and affiliates that did some- villages, where near normal conditions duced torrents of words but little else. thing special for the "Year" reached into had been restored, More than 6,000 Moerman. however, observed that while the thousands by the end of 1979. On the schools and 1,000 clinics and hospitals many organizations and individuals ex- governmental side, response was equally had been reopened. Unicefs mission pressed sincere compassion toward chil- electric. as attested by the 148 national com- in Phnom Penh turned to long-range dren, the cause of children was usually missions that came into existence. assistance to health, nutrition and drowned out by the clamour surrounding The publicity attending IYC was over- education, while at the border, where highly-charged subjects like population whelming. Media events ranged from a 100- considerable numbers of refugees re- control or women's lib. Moerman ap- foot IYC banner stretched across a village mained encamped, the UN relief was proached UN Secretary-General Kurt Wald- road in the Papua New Guinea highlands, taken over by a special organization set heim: Waldheim was positive, but Unicefs to sophisticated telethons and galas. Tens up for the purpose. Executive Director Henry R. Labouisse of thousands of articles were published, shared the reservations of a number of hundreds of TV films were made. While the Board and staff members. They feared that joys of childhood were celebrated, agoniz-

Unicef News 17 UNICEF;IF PHOTO 273

To support the fight against hunger. Italian children presented an 880 metres message w President Pertini during IYC,

ing problems were also explored : drugs. Labouisse put it. IYC was not meant to be "a through simple measures undertaken by child labour, sexual abuse. The IYC Secre- high point in the graph of our concern with their families, instead of taking them away tariat's referral service put different organ- children (but) a point of departure from from their communities. In 1981. the Inter- izations in touch with each other. Materials which that graph would continue to rise". national Year of Disabled Persons, Unicef on UnJcefs traditional programme areas For certain groups of disadvantaged chil- began to offer this kind of programme - nutrition, health, education - were dren, that promise was delivered. The plight support for disabled children, within the sought by industrialized countries with of street children in the rapidly growing framework of primary health care. pockets of severe deprivation; materials on slums and shanty-towns of the developing During rvc many national commissions child exploitation, children with learning world gained an outburst of attention, espe- used the Declaration of the Rights of the difficulties, children in the age of TV. were cially from NCOS. Worldwide, around 70 Child as a main theme in their educational exchanged with organizations in develop- million children were living virtually with- campaigns. To give them greater force, the ing countries. None of the UN'S other Years, out parental support in streets, markets, and Polish Government urged the transforma- before or since, quite aroused such wide deserted buildings. More than half were tion of the Declaration into a Convention on interest or entered into people's hearts as in Latin America. In 1980 Unicef began the Rights of the Child. A Declaration is a completely as IYC. gathering information on programmes statement of principle, whereas a Conven- Unicef and its immediate supporters which reunited street children with their tion is a legal instrument binding on a sig- gained a tremendous boost from IYC. In- families and brought them back into the natory; most governments therefore felt come from private contributions rose to $50 community instead of forcing them into that such a change in international law million in 1979. double that of the year penal or disciplinary institutions. By 1983 should not be rushed. In the years follow- before. The enthusiasm of Unicefs own several programmes in Latin America had ing IYC, support for the adoption of a Con- National Committees was rekindled and been assisted by Unicef aid, frequently with vention grew, and Canada and Sweden in some countries, Japan and Italy for ex- church and voluntary agencies as active backed Poland's initial move. ample. IYC raised the image of Unicef to a partners. In l984NilsThedin, Sweden's delegate of completely new level. The wholehearted Another group ol children whose prob- many years to the Unicef Executive Board, involvement of voluntary organizations in lems were widely aired during IYC were raised a related issue to which he had been the Year opened the way lor greater collabo- those with disabilities : hearing, sight and committed ever since he witnessed the ration between many of these organizations speech impairments, physical and mental suffering of children during the Spanish and Unicef in theyears to come —a collabo- handicaps. Unicef assisted health pro- Civil War in the 1930s. He proposed that ration that was to assume great importance grammes previously concentrated on pre- children be declared "a neutral, conflict- in the Child Survival and Development vention : Immunization against polio and free zone in human relations"; in a violent Revolution of the next decade. vitamin-A supplements to prevent xero- world, children should be internationally phthalmia (night-blindness). In 1979 Unicef protected. During 1985 Unicef began to Children with special problems commissioned an NGO. Rehabilitation study "children in especially difficult cir- International, to undertake a study of chi Id- cumstances", circumstances including ex- But when the IYC speeches and celebrations hood disabilities in the developing world. ploitation, sexual abuse, and armed conflict. were done, when the IYC secretariat had Their report showed that the problem was At the same time. Unicef began to put its been disbanded and the last of the special not a minor one : world-wide, one child in weight behind a Convention on the Rights studies mimeographed and collated, it was ten isborn with or acquires a disability later of the Child. By the end of the 1980s, in- evident that turning the year's rhetoric into in life. Rehabilitation International recom- spired at least partly by IYC. a Magna Carta programmes of lasting benefit for children mended imaginative ways in which the life for children may have passed into inter- would be a long and arduous task. As of disabled children could be improved national law.n

38 U» iccf News Chapter Nine: 1985 In December 1979 at the conclusion of the International Year of the Child, Henry R. Labouisse, Unicefs second Executive Director, retired after nearly 15 years of service. Labouisse had been asked by the Towards a child survival UN Secretary-General to shepherd Unicef through [he IYC. Now, as the third UN Development Decade began, the time had come for the changing of the Unicef guard. revolution A generation of senior staff who had joined Unicef as young men in the wake of the second world war had reached [he moment of retirement. A new chapter in Unicefs In 1982, Unicefs third Executive Director, James P. Grant, launched affairs was beginning. what came to be called a "child survival and development revolution". Under Labouisse, Unicef had grown and The goal: dramatic improvements in the health and well-being matured immeasurably. He had navigated it through tricky, international diplomatic of the world's poorest children within a decade. channels and had managed to increase both its resources and the scope of its develop- ment co-operation. His successor. James VM'j 65''lsaai_ P. Grant, also an American, inherited an organization unrecognizable as the small though active organization Labouisse had taken over from Maurice Pate. It was mm working in some 120 developing countries, and enjoyed a high degree of confidence and credibility. Grant believed that Unicefs foundations were sufficiently solid to allow advantage to be taken of its 33 years of experience. He wanted to make what he called a "quantum jump" in its effectiveness, concentrating on measurable and well- advertised targets. He actively sought pub- licity for these targets as part of the strategy for mobilizing national leaders, govern- ments, organizational partners, and indi- vidual supporters behind them. James Grant was born in China, son of a distinguished pioneer in international pub- lic health, and had spent his entire life and career involved in the issues of third world development. Since 1969. he had headed the Overseas Development Council, a private organization in Washington, and had con- tributed actively to the debates surrounding the international order, and how it should be changed to foster third world progress and the good of all mankind, He belonged to the school of thought which believed that development goals with a human emphasis should be set for the end of the century : longer life expectancy, lower illiteracy, fewer births, and a sharp reduction in infant and child death and disease. In many de- veloping countries, the infant mortality rate UMR) was still above 100 per 1,000 live A child is vaccinated in a Turkish village as pan of the immunization campaign births, and in some countries not far below against the six communicable killer diseases. 200. At Unicef, Grant began to focus on the

Unicef News 39 UNICEF 1091 /86/Budd Gray Shots of arms the first small vaccination candi- date. At his side were James Grant and Dr. Carlyle Guerra de Macedo, Direc- a peaceful kind tor of PAHO. Dr. Macedo said : "Weare hopeful that this experience, in which On three Sundays - February 3rd, health for children can serve as a bridge March 3rd, April 21st. 1985 - the mili- for peace, can be repeated throughout tary and the rebel forces throughout El Central America." President Duarte Salvador observed a truce for the sake then visited a number of health posts to of the children. Fighting stopped so that see how the campaign was going. At every mother, wherever she lived and the end of the day, he reported that under whosever control, could have no military actions had taken place to safe passage to take her children to be disrupt the immunization activities. immunized. Everyone had enjoyed a "day of peace, The mass vaccination campaign a day of hope". The experiment had against the six childhood killers - worked. diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, The target was to immunize 80 per tuberculosis, measles, and polio - was cent of Salvadoran children in need of backed by President Jose Napoleon protection. On the first "day". 217.000 Duarte. His instructions to government children under five years old - a little troops not to open fire followed as- more than half - came to be immu- surances from Archbishop Rivera y nized. In order to raise the numbers Damas that the guerilla command for the second round, more than 3,000 would do likewise for the "days of health workers visited parents from tranquillity". on the radio, and priests spoke to their house to house over the course of the The idea for the campaign grew out congregations every Sunday on the next four weeks. of a meeting at the office of UN duty of parents to "prevent by vacci- When the second "day" dawned, a Secretary-General Javier Perez de nation". The most complex problem moment of military tension threatened Cuellar in July 1984 between President was to make sure that everyone, even to disrupt the preparations and scare Duarte and James Grant. Unicef s Ex- people in remote villages and war-torn parents and children away. Last minute ecutive Director. Grant suggested that districts, knew about the "days of appeals from Roman Catholic leaders children's survival and health might be tranquillity". prevented the de facto truce from col- that rare cause which could command Teams of 20.000 health workers and lapsing. This "day" turned out to be the such widespread support that even a volunteers were trained by the Red most successful of all: 265,000 chil- civil war could be put on hold. Such an Cross to give vaccination shots and dren were vaccinated. On the third, the idea is a 20th century invention. Not run special vaccination posts set up total was 241,000. until the first world war did nations ac- throughout the country. In rebel-held Although the campaign reached cept that children were above the pol ii- areas, teams of volunteers from the closer to 60 per cent than 80 per cent ical divide, and thai their well-being International Red Cross helped to man of its under-fives target, it was never- ought not to depend on arguments be- the posts. More than 800 vehicles were theless a remarkable achievement in a tween the nations. Unicef was born of used to deliver insulated boxes of fresh nation engaged in civil war. "This the maturity of that idea, which came vaccine to the 2.000 posts on the day reconciliation for progress and the of age in the aftermath of the second before the campaign. In some moun- common good announced loudly El world war. Now Grant's "child survival tainous and remote areas, helicopters Salvador's commitment to a positive fu- revolution" was being used to give real were used to transport the doses. ture and has been an inspiration to the meaning to the idea of "children as a Unicef provided the vaccines and much rest of the world", wrote Javier Perez zone of peace". of the logistics support. The $1.5 mil- de Cuellar in a letter to President In the weeks before the campaign, lion cost of the campaign was shared Duarte. posters and printed handbills an- with the Pan-American Health Organ- nounced dates for vaccination. Even ization, UNDP, USAID. and Rotary lottery tickets carried the campaign International. emblem and the slogan : "prevenir President Duarte himself launched es...vacunar". Thousands of advertise- the campaign on television, from the ments were carried in newspapers and Presidential Palace, by taking in his

-ID Unicef News ICEF9274/Khan The "GOB/" techniques

The firs! of these - "G" for growth - was a technique for nutritional monitoring. To a considerable extent, the problem of mal- nutrition is an invisible problem : only a very small proportion of children in the average third world village or shantytown - one or two per cent - are so short of food that they are "starving" or severely mal- nourished in the classic image. Most are simply underweight, and do not have the energy or strength they should have. But unless their weight is compared to what it ought to be at their age, it is easy for a mother to miss the signals. One way to help her "see" her child's poor condition is to have her bring her child to be weighed regularly every month, and to plot the results on a chart. If the child is falling off the "road to health", the mother can be given some extra rations or encouraged to give her child more to eat from the family pot. This system of nutritional monitoring had been in use in many primary health programmes supported by Unicef in vari- ous parts of (he world. The second technique was oral therapy "O" - to rehydratc children suffering from the world's greatest single child killer: diarrhoea. Five million children a year died from the dehydration induced by diarrhoea, and five million more suffered persistent set-backs to their health. The diarrhoea it- self often stemmed from no more than a mild infection; but the sudden loss of fluid put the body at risk. Mothers watching their children's strength ebb away often reacted by withholding food and drink simply to stop the flow. By the time the body was in the shock of severe dehydration, rehydra- tion by intravenous drip was thought to be the only way to save life. Intheearly 1960s, quite by accident, it was discovered that Oral Rehydration Therapy (ORT) is an effective treatment for dehydration due 10 adding glucose to a drink of salt and water diarrhoe&i diseases in young children. increased the body's rate of absorption of liquid given through the mouth by a factor of 25. Other sugars, and even starch, could be substituted for glucose, to yield recipes specific target of bringing the IMR to below nized such an all-out attack as had malaria, that could easily be followed in the home. 50 in every country by the year 2000. yaws or smallpox. In the autumn of 1982 In 1978, oral rehydration therapy (ORT) was Between the 1940s and the early 1970s, Grant assembled a group of experts from UN described by the British medical journal child disease and death rates dropped dra- organizations and the academic world to Lancet as "potentially the most important matically, largely because of the mass dis- consider how an assault could be mounted medical advance of the century''. ease control campaigns. Then the decline on nutrition and ill-health. The group's at- The third technique was the promotion of slackened. The pernicious combination of tention focused on four simple low-cost breast-feeding and good weaning proce- poor diet and unsanitary living conditions techniques which had proved their worth dures -"B". It had long been recognized that - the hallmark of poverty - had not galva- in primary health care and basic services. from a nutritional point of view breast-milk

TF/ UnicefNews 41 A future for Africa's children ? mittent conflict. The problems of Africa deepened still further in 1983 and 1984 when drought struck again, extending as well this time to several countries in the south. Every international organization whose business had anything to do with famine, including Unicef, built up its operational capacity in Africa. Thou- sands of food cargoes were dispatched, and medical teams were sent to relief camps. Spurred by mass-media coverage of famine camps and emaciated children, there was a generous outpouring of assistance, much of it generated by benefit performances by popular rock music groups. Liv Ullmann, who had first helped to focus the world's atten- tion on the needs of Africa's children in 1980, again journeyed to the worst- affected areas and reported in moving terms on what she had seen. But. a.s Gram reminded the Executive Board in 1984, even before the shattering con- sequences of the new drought, the sit- uation of children in Africa had been grim. In 1982 infant mortality rates in Africa were 42 per cent higher than the world average. In 1985 Grant called a group of his senior staff together to review the situation in Africa in relation to the longer-term prospects of the continent's children. Their work led to a report: "Within human reach, a future for Africa's children", which argues that a major cause of Africa's crisis has been neglect of the "human dimension". It suggests that the widening gap between Africa and the rest of the world re- UNICEF 1359^85'D0nois ceived too little attention in the years The wave of decolonization that swept when drought struck the Sahel, the before the emergency had reached such over Africa in the 1960s was accom- semi-arid grazing lands lapping the devastating proportions. Even in 1981 panied by an upsurge of optimism in the southern fringe of the Sahara Desert. some 30 per cent of the children in newly independent countries, eager to The lack of rainfall extended all across many African states were mal- tackle their own problems in their own the continent to Sudan, Ethiopia and nourished, while Africa's per capita way. Within a few years, worsening Somalia in the Horn. The herds of I ive- food production had been dropping terms of trade and mounting import stock on which millions of families year after year - seven per cent during bills - particularly after the 1974 oil depended perished. "The land is grown the 1960s and 25 per cent during the crisis - left many African countries old" commented an old Somali woman 1970s - climaxing in the disastrous struggling harder economically than watching a way of life disappear. Prob- crop failures of 1983/84. "The drought ever before. lems were exacerbated in many coun- and the famine," the report stated, "are Worse was to follow in the mid 1970s tries by political instability and inter- only the obv ious symptoms of a deeper

42 Unicef News was the perfect food for babies. Recent re- discoveries; bul as a package of measures. search had led to recognition of its remark- Grant was convinced, they had a previously malaise, a vulnerability starkly re- able immunological properties. Breast-fed unrecognized potential which was a "dis- vealed by a hostile climate." babies, even those living under unhygienic covery". From a technical and cost point of While grandiose development conditions, were not only better nourished view, they had arrived at a point of develop- projects had saddled many countries than their bottle-ted counterparts : they had ment where there were no obstacles to their with huge external debts, Africa's smaJI considerably fewer infections. Protecting widespread use; in addition, the expansion farmers had been left to struggle on. the practice of breast-feeding in an era when of primary health care facilities and the Rarely had policy-makers understood bottle-feeding was fast taking its place as training of health auxiliaries, the prolifera- the importance of their contribution, or the modern way to feed an infant had be- tion of women's groups, the rise in literacy, made their agricultural efforts a focus come something of an international cause and the phenomenal spread in the reach of of investment. Women, working in the celebre during the late 1970s. In 1979, WHO mass communications, as witnessed by the fields eight to ten hours a day. were and Unicef had jointly sponsored a confer- ubiquity of the transistor radio, meant that treated by economic planners as if they ence in Geneva on sound infant feeding and there were ways of reaching people with did not exisi. The folly of such policies nutrition practice, in which representatives them. On their own, they could not offer a has lately been proven in Zimbabwe, of the international infant formula manufac- complete answer to all the problems of high where small farmers receiving the turers and consumer activists had partici- infant mortality and childhood disease; but attention normally concentrated on pated . One of its outcomes was an interna- they offered a significant partial answer. commercial farms and large estates tional code of marketing practice;; for the Grant emphasized three other measures harvested enough maize in a drought promotion of breast-milk substitutes, passed alongside "GOBI" : family spacing, the dis- season to feed the entire country and by the World Health Assembly in 1981: but tribution of food supplements to poorly yield a million-ton surplus. this was only one among many measures nourished children and nursing mothers, More areas of development than sim- which were needed if breast-feeding was and the promotion of female literacy. But al- ply agricultural policy demand urgent to make a comeback in the increasingly though these measures were also important, rethinking, the report contends. More urbanized Third World. none passed the tests of low cost, political investment and international assistance The fourth technique was "I" for immu- support, and potential for popular accept- is needed, to put a floor under poverty. nization against six widespread commu- ance. They were not to be ignored; but they Resources should bolster such "human" nicable diseases : diphtheria, pertussis were not. in Grant's view, as "do-able". priorilies as women's role in food secu- (whooping cough), tetanus, measles, polio- rity and family well-being; basic serv- myelitis, and tuberculosis, which together The hall starts railing ices such as water supply and expanded carried away five million young lives each education; protection for children's year. Unicef had been a partner in WHO'S The Executive Director's call for a Child health; and rehabilitation of the en- Expanded Programme of Immunization Survival and Development Revolution vironment. (EPI) since 1974, and had enthusiastically (CSDR) was endorsed by the Executive Board The report concluded that a convinc- supported a target of universal child immu- at both its 1983 and 1984 sessions and by the ing case could be made for a new kind nization by 1990, declared in 1977 as part UN General Assembly. From the beginning, of major investment in African econ- of the larger primary health care target of it was evident that any success that Unicef omies : an investment in people. "A "health for all by the year 2000". By 1982. could contemplate in launching this "revo- healthy, educated and skillful popula- Unicef had become the main supplier of lution" would depend to a very great extent tion is the driving force that can take vaccines to about 80 countries in Asia. on its ability to awaken the widest sup- African countries through this crisis Africa and the Middle East, as well as cold port among government leaders, opinion and beyond. A future for Africa's chil- chain equipment - refrigerators and cool makers, and professional groups around the dren is within human reach - if all boxes - and training for vaccinators. As world. From 1982 an important part of the Africans are allowed the strength and scientific advances had made vaccines more organization's effort went into "action the opportunity to grasp it," reliable and less dependent on constant through advocacy". The series of Unicef This call for a major international in- refrigeration, the costs of immunization State of the World's Children reports thai ap- vestment programme brings to mind programmes had fallen. Moreover it had peared annually from 1982 onwards, effec- the situation in Europe in 1946 when been demonstrated that paraprofessionals tively argued the CSDR case, citing examples Unicef was born, a situation that at that could administer vaccines effectively. An of initial successes throughout the develop- time seemed equally grim. The old accelerated drive against these six "vaccine- ing world. Achieving widespread endorse- Somali woman's vision - that "the land preventable" diseases was now envisaged. ments from national and international is grown old" - does not have to pre- Grant's call for a "child survival revolu- figures for the campaign, as well as press, vail. But it will take more than an im- tion™ based on the widespread use of these television, and radio coverage, both in de- provement in the weather to bring the techniques was first elaborated in his De- veloped and developing countries, was part African continent back from the brink cember 1982 Slate of the World's Children of the overall strategy. Grant himself poured of distress. report, an annual publication which he had his energies into the job of promoting CSDR honed into an impressive public relations untiringly, carrying sachets of oral rehydra- vehicle. None of the measures were new tion mix and growth charts in his breast

'^*J> Unicef News ^ pocket, and promoting their benefits The other three measures specified as Grant's thesis that a combination of politi- through speeches, articles, interviews, and needed for a CSDR were also to do with im- cal will and expert orchestration of all com- television appearances. proving women's health and well-being. munications channels could mobilize an The response was heartening. The pres- Female education mighl be a key to the entire society behind a "revolution" for chil- tigious American Academy of Pediatricians spread of all of them : literate women were dren's health. On a series of national vacci- and the International Pcdiatric Association knowledgeable women, and women who nation days in 1984, launched by President lent their support to ORT and the other child were willing to entertain the idea of chang- Betancur himself, a vaccination "crusade" survival measures. A number of heads of ing the lifestyle they had copied unquestion- reached 800,000 children and raised the na- state gave strong support to the imperative ingly from their mothers and mothers-in- tion's immunization rate to more than 75 per of reducing infant and child mortality, and law. Even within low-income communities, cent of all six vaccine-preventable diseases. announced campaigns to give a boost to one for example, children born to mothers with In December 1984, Betancur announced or more of the GOBI measures. National and no education had been shown to be twice as that Colombia now had a National Child international allies joined a strong and im- likely to die in infancy as those born to Survival and Development Plan to reduce pressive list : President Belisario Betancur mothers with as little as four years of school- infant and child deaths to 40 per 1,000 by of Colombia; Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ing. Grant concluded that "the empowering 1989. He added: "we are going to keep of India, and her successor. Prime Minister of the mother and the building of concentric on immunizing all ourchildren until the time Rajiv Gandhi; UN Secretary-General Javier circles of support around her" was the only comes when there are no more cases of Perez de Cuellar; Prime Minister Olof realistic hope of reaching the majority of the vaccine-preventable diseases in our Palme of Sweden; President Napoleon world's children. The "revolution" for chil- country". Duarte of El Salvador; and many others. dren represented not a departure from, but Immunization had similarly caught the Some of the outpouring of support was a part of an overall strategy for accelerat- imagination in a number of other countries. largely rhetorical. But as a growing number ing traditional programmes of Unicef co- Nigeria, Turkey, El Salvador, Pakistan. of countries announced child survival cam- operation, including programmes for Bolivia, Nicaragua, Lesotho, Sri Lanka, paigns and targets, il appeared that there was women, water supply and sanitation, pri- Saudi Arabia. India, China, and Zimbabwe a great reservoir of genuine concern over mary health care and nutrition, formal and had all announced plans to step up their the lot of children waiting to be tapped, and non-formal education, and early childhood national immunization coverage to reach that in his dramatic CSDR proposals. Grant development. upwardsofSO per cent of children : the level had managed to do just that. Acting with By 1985, there were encouraging de- which virtually guarantees that a disease support from WHO, UNDP and other UN velopments to report. In Sri Lanka a mass cannot find a foothold in a population. De- agencies, and constantly emphasizing that media campaign to promote breast-feeding mand for vaccines world-wide was running child survival belonged not to Unicef, but and a ban on all advertising of infant formula at three times the 1983 rate. Unicef esti- to everyone. Grant was also able to form helped increase breast-feeding in urban mated that one million children's lives a year strategic alliances with many important areas to over 70 per cent. Government were being saved as a result. Alert to the tide NCOS. These included the League of Red hospitals in Brazil and Philippines banned of political will, Grant began to zero in on Cross and Crescent Societies, whose own the use of artificial feeds in all except ex- the goal of "Universal Child Immunization "Child Alive1' programme was launched in treme cases and "roomed-in" newborn by 1990" as the cutting edge of the whole 1984, as well as Rotary International, which babies with their mothers. In Thailand the campaign, promised to pay the bill for all the polio number of growth charts in use rose from On October 24,1985, during the UN'S 40th vaccine supplied by Unicef over a period 400.000 in 1980 to 2.5 million by the begin- anniversary celebrations, the General As- of 20 years. ning of 1984. In Botswana, to help cope with sembly unanimously endorsed the goal. a state of nutritional emergency, the mothers Only a few years ago the 1990 target had ap- At the heart of child survival: of 95 per cent of all the children under five peared worthy but unrealistic. Now experts the mother were given growth charts. In Egypt, a na- began to feel that it really might be possible tional programme to halve deaths from to reach it. The chief ground for optimism When it came to the actual implementation diarrhoea! disease by promoting ORT was was not any new technological break* of the child survival revolution measures, launched. The Bangladesh Rural Advance- through but the political and social mo- there was a role for everyone from govern- ment Committee, a non-governmental or- bilization that had made immunization ment ministers and planners, right down to ganization, had trained over 1.000 teams of campaigns in many countries such a the simplest village health worker. But in the oral rehydration workers; they had visited remarkable success. The year 1990 will be final analysis the key person was the mother. more than a million mothers and taught just 40 years from the time when Unicef, As Grant wrote in his 1985 State of the them how to make and use home-made oral turning its attention wholly to children of the World's Children report, "the mother needs rehydration mix. developing countries, responded to requests to be seen as the centre of child health care". If all the measures for child survival had from several of these countries to help It was the mother, he pointed out, who scored notable successes, the one that had launch their first mass vaccination cam- decided whether to breast-feed, whether to truly taken off by the middle of 1985 was paigns against tuberculosis. Can epidemics use oral rehydration therapy, whether a "I" : immunization. One of the most strik- of polio and measles, can outbreaks of child would be taken for a full course of im- ing programmes took place in Colombia, whooping cough and tetanus, be relegated munization and to be periodically weighed. and provided a copybook illustration of to the pages of history? Only time can t£ll.

44 Unicef News Books, films and radio

THE STATE Children and the Nations Unicef: The First Forty Years OF THE WORLD'S by Maggie Black 29 minute film/video CHILDREN Publication Date: November 1986 (English, French and Spanish) 1986 Describes the activities of Unicef in the wider context of social development and international co-operation in the years Unicef: The Children since the second world war. Portrays the Ttie State of the World's Children is Ihe of the World evolution of thinking about key-events, most up-to-date source of information on short radio programme programmes and people who have helped the issues of child survival and develop- countries give their children a better start (English version narrated ment available in a single volume. in life. by Peter Ustinov; alstt produced in French and Spanish) This authoritative work contains a report by the Executive Director of Unicef, James P Grant, detailing progress to- We are the Children These two productions trace the evolu- wards the large-scale implementaton of by Judith Spiegelman tion of Unicef from its earliest work in practicable, low-cost child survival Publication Date: November 1986 postwar Europe through the organiza- measures - the potential impact of which tion's present efforts to lower infant has been described as "nothing less than A celebration of UniceFs first 40 years, mortality rales throughout the developing revolutionary". with photos, cartoons, and human in- terest essays about, and by. people world. Both programmes have been compiled from UN and Unicef archive The book also contains a powerful refer- who have helped make Unicef what material. ence section comprised of extracts and it is, from post-war Europe to CSDR. summaries from recent research and Includes a special photo essay on The programmes have been designed writings on critical child survival areas "Children in Crossfire", covering Unicef to give audiences an awareness that and provides a comprehensive collection aid to children in war and civil conflict. Unicefs history is closely associated of social and economic statistics relating with a growing world ethic of responsi- to the health and well-being of children bility and compassion to meet the needs in 130 countries. Unicefs Almanac of mothers and children throughout the of the World's Children world. They explain that Unicef is a The English edition is published by by Joan Bel Geddes voluntarily funded UN agency that works Oxford University Press in partnership with governments and (Hardcover: $19.95 - Softcover: $6.95). Publication Date: Early 1987 local populations to improve the well- the French by Aubier Montaigne A reference book with a detailed cross- being of their mothers and children. (Softcover: FF75.00). index, packed with statistics, summaries Spanish by Siglo XXI de Espafia and human interest stories about child To obtain this Unicef film/video/radio Editores SA (Hardcover: PTS 1,600 - health, nutrition, education, etc., and the tape contact the Unicef office or National Softcover: PTS 1,100) and German by work of Unicef; additional sections on Committee in your country or Unicef, Peter HammerVerlag / Jugenddienstverlag the child in folklore, literature, art, Division of Communication and (Softcover: DM 20.00). Copies may children's games and toys. Contains a Information, United Nations. New York, be obtained through any bookseller. chronological summary of programmes N.Y. 10017. for children, their progress during the past 40 years and predictions regarding their future. Further information about Vnicefand Czechoslovakia Portugal its work may be obtained from: Czechoslovak Committee for Co-operation Portuguese Committee for Unicef with Unicef Praca Dr. Fernando Amado, Unicef Headquarters c/o Ministry of Foreign Affairs Lote 568,1 Andar United Nations, New York 10017, U.S.A. Lorelanske nam. 5, CS-IIO 000 Prague I Zona J. Chelas. P-I90Q Lisbon Unicef Geneva Headquarters Denmark Romania Palais des Nations, CH 1211, Geneva 10, Danish Committee for Unicef Romanian National Committee for Unicef Switzerland Billedvej. 8. Frihavnen. DK-2100 Copenhagen 0 6-8 Strada Onesli. R-7000 Bucharest 1 Unicef Regional Office Federal Republic of Germany San Marino for Eastern and Southern Africa German Committee for Unicel National Commission for Unicef of San Marino P.O. Box 44145, Nairobi, Kenya Steinfeltler Gasse 9, D-5000 Cologne I c/o Segretaria di Stato per gli Affari Esleri Unicef Regional Office Palazzo Begni. SM-47031 San Marino Finland for Central and West Africa Finnish Committee for Unicef Spain B.P 443. Abidjan 04. Cote d'lvoire Picni Roobertinkatu II. SF-00130 Helsinki 13 Spanish Committee for Unicef Unicef Regional Office for the Americas Apartado 12021. E-28080 Madrid France Apartado Aeieo 7555, Bogota, Colombia French Committee for Unicef Sweden Unicef Regional Office for EasI Asia and Pakistan 35, rue Felicien-David Swedish Committee for Unicet P.O. Box 2-154, Bangkok 10200. Thailand F-75781 Paris Cedex 16 Skolgrand 2, Box 151 15, S-I04 65 Stockholm Unicef Regional Office German Democratic Republic Switzerland for the Middle East and North Africa National Committee for Unicef Swiss Committee for Unicef P.O. Box 811721. Amman, Jordan of the German Democratic Republic Postfach. Werdstrasse 36. CH-8021 Zurich 1 Warschauer Strasse 8 Tunisia Unicef Regional Office DDR-1034 Berlin for South Central Asia Tunisian Committee for Unicef 73 Lodi Estate. New Delhi 11000.1, India Greece Le Colysee, Escalier B-Bureau 158. TN-TUnis Hellenic National Committee for Unicef Turkey Unicef Office Xt-mas Street I, GR-115 27 Athens for Australia and New Zealand TUrkish National Committee for Unicef G.PO. Box 4045, Hungary Abdullah Cevdt Sok. 22/10. TR-Cankaya Sydney. N.S.W. 2001. Australia Hungarian National Committee for Unicef Szechenyi Rakpart. 6 United Kingdom Unicef Office for Japan H-1054 Budapest 5 United Kingdom Committee for Unicef c/o United Nations Information 55 Lincoln* Inn Fields. GB-London WC2A 3NB Ireland Centre. 22nd floor United States of America Irish National Committee for Unicef Shin Aoyama Building Nishikan 1-1 United States Committee for Unicef 4 St. Andrew Street, IRL-Dublin 2 Minami-Aoyama I-Chome Minato-Ku. 331 East 38th Street, USA-New York, N.Y. 10016 Tokyo 107, Japan Israel Jugoslavia Israel National Committee for Unicef Information may also be obtained from Yugoslav National Committee for Unicef RO. Box 8009. IL-93105 Jerusalem the following Committees for Unicef Bulevar Lenjimi 2. Palata Federacije-Zapadno Krilo Australia Italy YLJ-ll070NovJBeograd Italian Committee for Unicef Unicef Committee of Australia Liaison Offices 156 Castlereagh Street, AUS-Sydney N.S.W. 2000 Piazza Marconi 25,1-OOI44 Rome Japan Argentina Austria Argentine Association for Unicef Japan Committee for Unicef. Inc. Austrian Committee for Unicef Av. Belgrano 254. AR-1092 Buenos Aires Vienna International Centre 1-2, Azabudai 3-Chome Minalo-Ku, (UNO-City) 22 Wagramer Strasse 9 J-Tokyo 106 Cyprus United Nations Associations of Cyprus A-I400 Vienna Luxembourg Sub-Committee for Unicef Luxembourg Committee for Unicd' Belgium 14 Makarios III Ave.. 2nd floor 99, Route d'Arlon, L-I140 Luxembourg Belgian Committee for Unicef Mitsis Bldg.. No. 2. office No. 5 I, rue Joseph B-Boite 9. B-1040 Brussels Netherlands RO- Box 1508. CY-Nicosia Netherlands Committee for Unicef Bulgaria Iceland Bankastraat J28, Postbus 85857 Bulgarian National Committee for Unicef Unicef in Iceland NL-2508 CN's-Gravenhage c/o Ministry of Public Health Storagerdi 30,1S-I08 Reykjavik 5 Lenin Place, BG-Sofia New Zealand U.S.S.R. New Zealand National Committee for Unicef. Inc. Canada Alliance of Red Cross and Red Crescent Canadian Unicef Committee RO. Box 347. 5 Willeston Street NZ-Wellingtonl Societies/sojuz Obshchestv 443, Mount Pleasant Road Krasnogo Kresta i Krasnogo Polumesiatsa 1. CDN-Toronto, Ontario M4S 2L8 Norway Cheremushkinskii Proezd 5. SU-Moscow 117036 Norwegian Committee for Unicef Olaf Ryes Plass 8. N-0552 Oslo 2 Poland Polish Committee of Co-operation with Unicef ul. Mokotowska 39, PL-00551 Warsaw