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every child counts: data is changing lives

By on February 7, 2014

As 25th anniversary of children’s rights convention approaches, vast progress made but reaching unreached children will require sharper focus on disparities, new report says.

Declaring that ‘every child counts’, UNICEF is urging greater effort and innovation to identify and address the gaps that prevent the most disadvantaged of the world’s 2.2 billion children from enjoying their rights.

The children’s agency, in a report released today, highlights the importance of data in making progress for children and exposing the unequal access to services and protections that mars the lives of so many.

“Data have made it possible to save and improve the lives of millions of children, especially the most deprived,” said Tessa Wardlaw, Chief of UNICEF’s Data and Analytics Section. “Further progress can only be made if we know which children are the most neglected, where girls and boys are out of school, where disease is rampant or where basic sanitation is lacking.”

Tremendous progress has been made since the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) was signed in 1989 and in the run up to the culmination of the Millennium Development Goals in 2015.

UNICEF’s flagship report, The State of the World’s Children 2014 In Numbers shows that:

Some 90 million children who would have died before reaching the age of 5 if child mortality rates had stuck at their 1990 level have, instead, lived.
In large measure, this is because of progress in delivering immunizations, health, and water and sanitation services.

Improvements in nutrition have led to a 37 per cent drop in stunting since 1990.

Primary school enrolment has increased, even in the least developed countries: Whereas in 1990 only 53 in 100 children in those countries gained school admission, by 2011 the number had improved to 81 in 100.

Even so, the statistics in the report, titled “Every Child Counts: Revealing disparities, advancing children’s rights,” also bear witness to ongoing violations of children’s rights:

Some 6.6 million children under 5 years of age died in 2012, mostly from preventable causes, in violation of their fundamental right to survive and develop.

Fifteen per cent of the world’s children are put to work that compromises their right to protection from economic exploitation and infringes on their right to learn and play.

Eleven per cent of girls are married before they turn 15, jeopardizing their rights to health, education and protection.

Data also reveal gaps and inequities, showing the gains of development are unevenly distributed:

In The Niger, all urban households but only 39 per cent of rural households have access to safe drinking water.

In Chad, for every 100 boys who enter secondary school, only 44 girls do – leaving them without an education and without protections and services that schools can provide.

The report notes that “being counted makes children visible, and this act of recognition makes it possible to address their needs and advance their rights.”

Much of what is known about the situations of children comes from household surveys which provide data on a range of topics affecting children’s survival, development, rights and experience of life. To date, the surveys have been conducted in more than 100 countries.

Thirty years have passed since The State of the World’s Children began to publish tables of standardized global and national statistics aimed at providing a detailed picture of children’s circumstances. With the release of an edition of the report dedicated to data, UNICEF is inviting decision-makers and the general public to access and use its statistics – at www.data.unicef.org – to drive positive change for children.

To see additional multimedia material, please visit: http://www.unicef.ca

For information on MICS, please visit http://www.childinfo.org/mics.html

UNICEF has saved more children’s lives than any other humanitarian organization. We work tirelessly to help children and their families, doing whatever it takes to ensure children survive. We provide children with healthcare and immunization, clean water, nutrition and food security, education, emergency relief and more. UNICEF is supported entirely by voluntary donations and helps children regardless of race, religion or politics. As part of the UN, it is active in over 190 countries – more than any other organization. Because nowhere is too far to go to help a child survive.

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