“A World Fit for Children:
Advancing the Global Movement”
2010 is a pivotal year for advocates of the rights, safety, and well-being of children. It marks the beginning of the United Nations’ International Year of Youth, on August 12; it is the 21st year of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC); the end of the decade set by “A World Fit for Children”; and the two-thirds mark for the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) targeted for 2015. Thus, it is timely and appropriate to use the 21st Annual WorldForum in New York to undertake an accounting of how successfully, or unsuccessfully, the global child welfare community has been in achieving the goals established by these conventions. Assessing our performance is responsible and instructive; much can be learned from reflecting upon the distance we have traveled since the inception of the CRC or MDGs. But benchmarking our progress towards these goals is only half the task. If the global child welfare community is to continue to be in the vanguard of protecting children, and assuring their social and economic welfare, it must do so with a clear vision of the actual and imminent conditions affecting the achievement of these goals.
The theme for WorldForum 2010 is “A World Fit for Children: Advancing the Global Movement.” This theme captures the work done to date in framing children’s rights and the goals for children’s development from an international perspective.Furthermore, it situates our work within a larger global advocacy movement and stresses the need for participation and collective action as we move forward. WorldForum 2010 will challenge the child welfare community to stop and think about its work in the context of a tomorrow that was not anticipated, by exploring linkages between current global trends and the attainment of the Forum’s goals.
Globally we are facing unprecedented challenges that directly impact the lives and future of our children and youth. Global trends that will fundamentally alter the child welfare landscape are already evident. Over the next several decades, we will have to grapple with the effects of three significant trends. Demographics: major shifts in population will profoundly reshape the world and the lives of children. Advances in Pediatric Neurobiology: new studies not only provide greater insight into the way children’s brains function, but also re-cast the deficiencies of childhood poverty as a bioethical issue, not one of economic opportunity alone. Greater Understanding of the Effect of Information & Communications Technologies (ICTs) on Sustainable Poverty Reduction: ICTs must take into account content, language, literacy, education, and community and institutional structures rather than access to technologies alone. The priorities and decisions that we make today will determine how these issues are resolved or exacerbated.
These trends, along with “A World Fit for Children,” The Convention on the Rights of the Child and the UNICEF Child Protection Strategy will guide the framework of WorldForum 2010, as we evaluate our progress in implementing a Plan of Action at the national and sub-national levels. In addition, the UNICEF Child Protection Strategy is of critical relevance to the IFCW, as it focuses on strengthening system reform and supporting social change as the key pillars in securing a protective environment for youth. That said, the four overarching categories of goals presented in the “World Fit for Children” framework are:
- Promoting Healthy Lives - Reducing child mortality, improving the range and innovation of child survival interventions, reducing maternal mortality ratios, ensuring access to pre-natal care and skilled care at delivery, improving adequate nutrition, reducing obesity rates and increasing access to drinking water and sanitation.
- Providing Quality Education for All - Ensuring universal access to quality primary and secondary education, and promoting gender parity.
- Protecting Children Against Abuse, Exploitation, and Violence – Protection from maltreatment, trafficking and abuse, child labor, child marriage, domestic and community violence, the ramifications of armed conflict, female genital mutilation/cutting, and ensuring equity for children with disabilities. Ensuring that every child is registered at birth and can enjoy basic freedoms and rights as set out in international conventions and protocols. The UNICEF Child Protection Strategy affirms safety and support of children as the primary and shared responsibility.
- Combating HIV/AIDS - Preventing mother-to-child transmissions, providing pediatric treatment, and improving the quality of life of children living with HIV.
The Program Committee has selected these four areas as major organizing themes for the WorldForum and kept them purposefully broad in order to promote inclusion of the range of issues, efforts and research that pertain to the safety and well being of children across diverse programmatic, policy, cultural, and geographic contexts.
The Program Committee has identified five focus areas that serve as cross-cutting themes, and are critical in impacting a large and significant segment of the child population across different nations. Participants are encouraged to consider these sub-themes in relation to their work as they prepare their proposals for WorldForum presentations.
CROSS-CUTTING FOCUS AREAS:
- Poverty, Hunger and Nutrition: The recent economic crisis has exacerbated poverty, hunger, and access to resources for families throughout the world.
- Family Stability/Immigration/Migration/Mobility: We recognize the central role that families play in protecting their children and creating healthy environments despite overwhelming odds. This is a time of great mobility across the globe and increasing tensions for displaced and immigrant families.
- Minority and Indigenous Languages, Identity, and Culture: We recognize the right of all people to full enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms including respect for their languages, identities, and cultures.
- Racial/Ethnic Disparities and Social Justice: Racial and ethnic disparities continue to grow as nations struggle with equity for all of its members.
- Active Participation and Empowerment of Youth and Families: We are interested in innovative ways to empower youth as actors in creating solutions to challenges, determining their own lives, and advocating for their rights.
These social, economic, and environmental issues are advancing with unprecedented speed, magnitude, and impact. They are challenging the capacity of our political and organizational systems to respond and to work toward a better future. The well known futurologist Thomas Homer-Dixon has said, that “looking back from the year 2100, we’ll see a period when our creations – technological, social, ecological – outstripped our understanding and we lost control of our destiny. And we will think – if only we’d had the ingenuity and will to prevent some of that. I am convinced that there is still time to muster that ingenuity – but the hour is late”.
The 21st Annual WorldForum in New York promises to stimulate, challenge, and energize the international child welfare community to fully integrate the broadest trends with the vast and deep intelligence derived from the day-to-day work of practitioners across the globe. Join us!