Convention Child Rights clocks 25
Twenty-five years ago the world made a promise to children: that we would do everything in our power to protect and promote their rights to survive and thrive, to learn and grow, to make their voices heard and to help them reach their full potential. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was signed on November 20 1989 and is now the most widely ratified convention in the world. The development of this convention was an innovation—recognising for the first time that children were people with a unique set of rights.
This year, as we approach the anniversary, there is much to celebrate in Malawi: from declining infant mortality, to rising school enrolment, to clean water and sanitation in the hardest-to-reach villages.
But in spite of these overall gains, there are many children who have fallen behind. Old challenges have combined with new problems to deprive many children of their rights and the benefits of development.
In a report released by Unicef in August this year entitled Generation 2030, data revealed that the future of humanity is increasingly African. On current trends within 35 years one in every four people will be African. This is compared to only nine among 100 in 1950. Malawi is one of those with the highest projected growth, with population expected to reach 41 million by 2050. The report points to huge shifts in global population trends and patterns, presenting both opportunities and threats to the countries of the African continent in the years ahead.
Faced with this rapidly changing environment and in order to ensure we focus on the hardest to reach children, we need new ways of thinking and new ways of doing.
Recognising this, Unicef has declared 2014 as the Year of Innovation for Equity—to focus the world’s attention on developing innovative solutions for children’s well-being.
Innovation is doing something different that adds value and moves us forward. Unicef has a proud history of innovations: whether its life-saving rehydration salts to treat children with diarrhoea; ready-to-use peanut paste that effectively treats acute malnutrition in young children or the modification of market structures to bring down the price of vaccines.
More recently the world has seen a huge shift in global communication technologies that has the potential to bring us much closer together. But with the advance of technologies and an incredibly interconnected world we must make sure innovation does not leave the most disadvantaged behind. Innovation for equity means we reach all children, and especially advance the rights of those that have the least. Unicef has developed a set of criteria to ensure innovation meets needs of the most disadvantaged, such as: designing innovation with and for the user, using participatory approaches; ensuring ideas are based on evidence and also adapted to local social, economic and cultural contexts.
Unprecedented global connectivity is enabling communities and children to push the boundaries of what is possible.
Last week UNICEF supported Malawi’s first TEDx Youth talk, as part of a series of talks on innovation for equity that have happened all over world. I had the honour of meeting speakers like Joanna who plays for the Malawi Queens and who also uses her profile to help girls achieve their dreams in life. And Bester who is harnessing mobile technologies to improve early learning teaching in Malawi day care centres.
These dynamic, motivated young people should give great hope to Malawi, a country where more than half the population is under 24.
When Unicef launches its flagship report this week, it will embrace the spirit of innovation with an interactive map, hosted on UNICEF.org, where anyone who is innovating to advance the rights of children can upload their innovation and details, and through doing so be connected with thousands of other innovators around the world. I hope many of Malawi’s innovators will take the opportunity to upload their experiences and in doing so join a global movement of innovators for equity.
Young people hold keys to innovation and problem solving that we older members of society will never understand. Let us give them the space to offer new ways of solving old problems.
