WUNRN
http://www.unicef.org/media/media_77941.html
THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN 2015: REIMAGINE THE
FUTURE – INNOVATION FOR EVERY CHILD – UNICEF – GIRLS
Direct Link to Report 124-Page Executive Summary: http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/SOWC_2015_Summary_and_Tables_1.pdf
Innovation can drive change for most disadvantaged children -
UNICEF Report
On the 25th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the
Child, The State of the World’s Children report lays out an agenda for change
NEW YORK, 20 November 2014 – Urgent action is
needed to prevent millions of children from missing out on the benefits of
innovation, UNICEF said in a new report launched on the 25th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Connectivity and collaboration can fuel new global networks to leverage
innovation to reach every child, according to the children’s agency.
The State of the World’s Children Report – Reimagine the future: Innovation for
every child calls on governments, development
professionals, businesses, activists and communities to work together to drive
new ideas for tackling some of the most pressing problems facing children – and
to find new ways of scaling up the best and most promising local innovations.
The report is a crowd-sourced compilation of cutting-edge
innovations and an interactive platform that maps innovations in countries all
over the world and invites innovators to put their own ideas ‘on the map’.
“Inequity is as old as humanity, but so is innovation – and it
has always driven humanity’s progress,” said UNICEF Executive Director Anthony
Lake. “In our ever-more connected world, local solutions can have global impact
– benefiting children in every country who still face inequity and injustice
every day.
“For innovation to benefit every child, we have to be more
innovative – rethinking the way we foster and fuel new ideas to solve our
oldest problems,” said Lake. “The best solutions to our toughest challenges
won’t come exclusively either from the top down or the grassroots up, or from
one group of nations to another. They will come from new problem solving
networks and communities of innovation that cross borders and cross sectors to reach
the hardest to reach – and they will come from young people, adolescents and
children themselves.”
The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on
the Rights of the Child in 1989. Since then, there has been tremendous progress
in advancing child rights – with a huge reduction in the numbers of children
dying before the age of five and increased access to education and clean water.
However, the rights of millions of children are violated every
day, with the poorest 20 percent of the world’s children twice as likely as the
richest 20 percent to die before their fifth birthday, almost one in four
children in the least developed countries engaged in child labour, and millions
of children regularly experiencing discrimination, physical and sexual
violence, and abuse and neglect.
The latest edition of UNICEF’s flagship report argues that
innovations such as oral rehydration salts or ready-to-use therapeutic foods
have helped drive radical change in the lives of millions of children in the
last 25 years – and that more innovative products, processes, and partnerships
are critical to realizing the rights of the hardest to reach children. The
fully digital report includes multimedia and interactive content that invites
readers to share their own ideas and innovations, and highlights outstanding
innovations that are already improving lives in countries around the world from
a wide range of countries, including:
· Solar Ear,
the world’s first rechargeable hearing aid battery charger, developed to meet
the needs of communities lacking regular access to electricity; it can be
charged via the sun, household light, or a cell phone plug. (Tendekayi Katsiga,
Deaftronics, Botswana / Zimbabwe)
· Community-based
management of acute malnutrition (CMAM), a model of care that moves away from
the traditional, expensive, low-coverage model of inpatient therapeutic feeding
centres run by aid agencies, treats people in their homes with the support of
local clinics and using ready-to-use therapeutic foods. (Steve Collins,
co-Founder and Director of VALID Nutrition)
· New ways
to engage Liberian youth in the midst of the Ebola crisis through U-report, a
mobile phone-based system developed with young people, that helps examine what
issues are most important to them. (UNICEF, Liberia)
· Floating
schools that provide year-round access to education for children living in
flood-prone regions of Bangladesh. (Mohammed Rezwan, Founding Executive Director
of the NGO Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha)
· Vibrasor,
a device invented by two teenage girls in Colombia, to help people with hearing
impairments navigate safely through busy urban areas. (Isamar Cartagena,
Katherine Fernandez)
· To find a
new solution to help those without regular access to electricity in Nigeria,
four teenage girls invented a urine-powered generator. (Nigeria)
“There are so many young inventors all across the globe – even
in the remotest corners – who are committed to changing the world for
children,” says Bisman Deu, a 16-year old from Chandigarh, India whose
invention of a building material made from rice waste is featured in UNICEF’s
report. “Every nation has different problems and every person has different solutions,”
said Deu. “We need to learn from one another’s experiences, come together as a
global community of innovation and keep producing ideas that can make a real
difference.” UNICEF has prioritized innovation across its network of more than
190 countries, setting up labs around the world including in Afghanistan,
Chile, Kosovo, Uganda, and Zambia to foster new ways of thinking, working and
collaborating with partners and to nurture local talent.
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