A conversation on children.

A little over eleven years ago, leaders met in k New York for the World Summit for Children. With wide expectations that the "peace dividend" would be devoted to development, they declared that "the well-being of children requires political action at the highest level", and signed up for ambitious goals. In a conversation on 5 April 2002 with the Chronicle's Russell Taylor, UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy talked about what has and has not been achieved since then, and on setting an agenda for the future--investing in our children--at the United Nations Special Session on Children (8-10 May 2002).

In "We The Children", Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that "the world has fallen short of achieving most of the goals of the World Summit", not because they were too ambitious or technically beyond reach, but largely because of insufficient investment. You yourself stated that "we have failed to achieve most of the end-of-decade survival and development goals set in 1990". What can the Special Session accomplish?

Part of what this Special Session is aiming to do is take a look at what has or has not taken place in light of the plan of action agreed upon in 1990, and then set an agenda for the future. There is already an official document of the Special Session--"We the Children"--and it shows a mixed picture. Some goals were achieved. More than 60 countries reduced their under-five and infant mortality rates by a third. About 100 countries cut their under-five mortality by a fifth. Countries took the Summit's plan of action seriously. And where there was adequate leadership and investment, there were clearly also gains. As another example, the world is on the brink of the eradication of polio. In 1990, there were 154 countries with polio cases; by 1999, there were 33; and by 2000, there were about 20. Guinea worm, too, has almost disappeared. More kids are in school today than at any time before. But the indicators in sub-Saharan Africa are still very, very low. Of the 20 countries in the world with the worst under-five mortality rates, 19 are in sub-Saharan Africa; the other is Afghanistan--by the way, this was long before 11 September. On maternal mortality goals, there was very little movement. So I think it is fair to say the picture has been mixed, with clearly better achievement in the Americas and East Asia than in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Why wasn't more done? Again, it needed leadership. It has suffered from the pandemic of HIV/AIDS, which is lust knocking the daylights out of some of the gains that had been made or could be made. War continues. Conflict and...