The United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) has announced a commitment aimed at eliminating zinc deficiency and improving food
security in developing countries. The commitment announced at the 5th
annual Clinton Global Initiative is a partnership between UNICEF, Clinton
Global Initiative and Zinc Industry partners.
Through the nutrition initiative, UNICEF and other partners will work to ensure
the survival, growth and development of children through improved zinc intake. Zinc deficiency has
been identified as a significant public health problem contributing to the
deaths of about 450,000 children each year. Worldwide, some 2 billion people
are at risk of zinc deficiency.
“We
announced a commitment today (Thursday) on nutrition cooperation. Nutrition is
a very important part of what we do in UNICEF,” said Ann Veneman, the UNICEF Executive
Director, in an interview with VOA.
She
said UNICEF also made announcements on health, where commitment will focus
on the survival of newborn babies and their mothers. “For the last two years we have been involved
in providing neonatal tetanus for
pregnant women. “Neonatal tetanus is very important because it is the first
immunization a child gets while still in the womb.”
Another commitment with some partners, Veneman
said, will be “preventing sexual violence young women and girls, a critical
issue around the world.” She
said sexual violence takes away girls’ opportunities, spreads HIV, and has many
other negative impacts. “It is very important that this year the Clinton Global
Initiative is putting a lot of focus on girls and women and their importance to
development.”
The UNICEF Executive Director also emphasized the importance of the Millennium development goals (MDGs). “The
Millennium development goals are critical. About two weeks ago I announced on
behalf of UNICEF that child mortality had been reduced 28% since the baseline
year (1990) for the MDGs.
She
said what this means in real numbers is that “ten thousand fewer children are
dying every day than were dying in 1990. So there has been real progress made
in MDG number 4 which is reducing child mortality.”
Veneman
also pointed to progress made in universal access to primary education and
gender equality in education, and clean water and sanitation. She,
however, expressed concern on maternal health which she said is lagging behind,
“there are still about 500 thousand women around the world who die every year of
maternal-related causes.”
On
the issue of orphans, Veneman said UNICEF has many programs working with many partners
trying to provide life skills for children who have no parental support. “This
is especially so in our initiative related to HIV/AIDS because so many of the
orphans, especially in Southern Africa, have become orphans because their
parents have died of AIDS.”
She
said the world needs to focus on and address the issue of orphans and children made
vulnerable by many reasons but particularly because of HIV/AIDS.
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