United+Nations+Children's+Fund

2011 ST. BONAVENTURE UNIVERSITY MODEL UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ** United Nations Children Fund ** My name is Katie Dinkuhn and I will be your chair for this conference. I am a freshman political science major at St. Bonaventure and this is my first high school conference. I graduated from Lake Shore High School in Angola, New York. I am a member of Model UN, concert band, pep band, and the girls’ club soccer team. I am excited for this year’s conference and for chairing the UNICEF committee. I hope that you enjoy learning about pertinent issues and what the United Nations is doing to solve these issues. Hello delegates! My name is Ashley Bynum and I will be your co-chair for this conference. I am a junior political science major from New York City and am in my second year in Model UN here at Bonas. Besides Model UN, I am also involved with Mock Trials and Young Democrats. This past semester I had studied abroad in China, but am glad to be back for this conference. I am looking forward to this year’s conference and seeing what you will all bring to the debate. **__Early Childhood Development__** The most important part of a child's life is the first couple of years. In this time, children grow socially, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Children are more likely to be healthy later in life if they develop receiving the appropriate care during this crucial time. More than 200 million children in the world do not get the proper care during their early childhood. Not only are many children physically unhealthy, but they don't develop socially or emotionally. This causes many children to not live up to their full potential. Often times, families are too poor to provide the proper care for their children. Many experts believe that there is a direct correlation between poverty and poor early childhood care. In order to prevent further poverty around the world, many believe that this is a crucial issue to solve. Recently, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has designed the //Early Child Development Kit// which is now used to give care the young children in emergency situations. UNICEF has also been working with The Consultative Group on Early Child Care and Development (ECCD) to create //The 4 Cornerstones// which is an initiative to inform parents on how to care for young children in third world countries. Also, in 1989, UNICEF set up the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which outlines the rights of children under 18 and outlines specifics rights dealing with early childhood development. In your research, you may want to look at the following: What policies can be put into place to ensure that all children receive the same early childhood care? How is your country working towards complete early childhood care? How can UNICEF improve the development of all children? How can early childhood development polices still be maintained during emergencies? What can UNICEF do to educate parents of young children? __Some helpful links:__ [] [] [] [|http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTCY/EXTECD/0,,menuPK:344945~pagePK:149018~piPK:149093~theSitePK:344939,00.html] [] **__Sanitation, Hygiene, and Clean Drinking Water__** Fifty percent of the world’s population has unsafe sanitation facilities. Many families are unable to ever use safe sanitation facilities. Poor sanitation and hygiene affect millions of children around the world and can cause serious illness and even death. Diarrhea, which is completely preventable, kills almost 5000 children per day and is mostly caused by poor sanitation and unsafe drinking water. Teaching good hygiene to everyone is a pertinent issue, but the issue of access to safe sanitation facilities is also an important issue. UNICEF began the initiative to provide proper facilities in 1966. UNICEF has been successful in providing adequate sanitation facilities to developing countries, but there are still many countries that are still far behind. There have also been many efforts towards promoting better hygiene including the recent //Global Handwashing Day.// In 2010, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly passed a resolution on the necessity of clean drinking water and sanitation. The UN, lead by UNICEF, has recently enacted their water, sanitation and hygiene initiatives or WASH in order to provide for those in need. UNICEF has worked closely with the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) to develop better freshwater management and provide cleaner water to those in need. In your research, you may want to look at the following: How can UNICEF more effectively provide access to safe drinking water? What can be done to further provide adequate sanitation facilities to third world countries? How can your country further educate children on the proper hygiene procedures? What do they do currently? What can UNICEF do to get closer to the Millennium Development Goal for safe drinking water? What groups can we work together with in order to reach our goals? __Some helpful links:__ [] [] [] [] [] **__Immunization__** More than 2.5 million children under five die annually of disease that could have been prevented with a vaccination. Many of these deaths are preventable but vaccines are not available to all children. In fact, 23.5 million children are not vaccinated. UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) are currently working together to increase the amount of children that are vaccinated each year. Currently, UNICEF is the largest vaccine supplier in the world. Often times, the countries with the largest populations are those that have the biggest problems with immunization. In 2006, the WHO and UNICEF worked together to create the Global Immunization Vision and Strategy program (GIVS). This program provides the framework to protect children across the globe from preventable diseases. One of the main diseases that UNICEF currently focuses on is polio. Along with the World Health Organization, Rotary International and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, UNICEF created the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 1994. This is an initiative to vaccinate all children with the polio vaccine. Although polio has been eradicated from many countries, there are still 11 countries where polio is active or have been re-infected. In your research, you may want to consider the following: How can UNICEF expand immunization coverage? What can further be done to completely eradicate polio? What is your country doing to further vaccinate hard to reach areas? What can UNICEF and other countries do to provide more education on disease treatment and prevention? What can be done to make vaccines more available and affordable? __Some helpful links:__ []= [] [] [] []