An Historic Opportunity to Protect Children

For too long, poor communities have been engulfed in the cycle of poverty and disease. Poverty increases vulnerability to disease through limiting access to health care, information, education , safe water, sanitation, adequate diet, and through other violations of children's rights. And sickness perpetuates poverty. When illness strikes, people who are poor are driven deeper into poverty --unable to work and care for or educate their children. This situation is often aggravated by the lack of knowledge, skills, and resources necessary for the prevention and care of childhood diseases.

A recent World Bank Report revealed that malaria, pneumonia, diarrhoeal diseases, measles, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis in children are the largest contributors to the health gap between the poor and the rich. Nearly 70% of all deaths from communicable diseases occur in children under the age of fourteen. Rising infant mortality rates and the millions of children infected or orphaned by the AIDS epidemic, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, are grim testimonies to the devastating impact of communicable diseases on families and society.

The success stories that follow are evidence that this vicious cycle of poverty and ill-health can be broken, even in some of the world's poorest countries, when children and families are at the centre of concerted action. This can be done by making affordable vaccines, drugs, and other interventions available to all children. But, most importantly, this must include empowering families and communities and ensuring their access to basic social services, including health care, basic education, nutrition, water, and sanitation. The success stories in this book, including those on preventing mother- to- child transmission of HIV/AIDS in Thailand and reducing child mortality in Benin through community child health programmes, are heartening illustrations of the potential of these strategies.

The world has the resources and the knowledge to significantly improve the lives of children and their families. What is now needed is the political commitment and action, at all levels of society, to build a global movement for children to ensure that every child's right to survival, dignity, security and self-fulfilment is achieved. Together we can build a better world for future generations.

Carol Bellamy
Executive Director
UNICEF