Last Friday, our group had the opportunity to meet with Judith Diers, Chief of the Adolescent Development and Participation program at the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). UNICEF is an agency of the United Nations that advocates for child health, education and well-being while implementing interventions and programs that adhere to these general goals. Initially, UNICEF was introduced as a UN program in 1946 to address the widespread famine that was impacting European children after World War II. In 1953, UNICEF’s mandate was extended indefinitely, which has allowed it to impact the survival for children throughout the agency’s existence. Although the problems that this group tackles is constantly changing due to new and emerging issues, its mission has stayed consistent in working on issues relating to child suffering in the international community. It was interesting to hear from Judith Diers on the attention that UNICEF is beginning to place on adolescent health and engagement in community. Because UNICEF mainly focuses on programs at extending life under the age of 5, we spoke about the hurdles that she faces in implementing techniques to help adolescent children that have never been utilized before.
UNICEF has 5 focus areas, namely child survival and development, basic education and gender equality, HIV/AIDS and children, child protection and policy advocacy and partnerships. The work they do is through 12 different approaches: 1) statistics and monitoring 2) supplies and logistics 3) UNICEF in emergencies and humanitarian action 4) evaluation and good practices 5) gender equality 6) adolescents and youth 7) communication for development 8) research 9) human-rights based approach to programming 10) situation analysis 11) social and economic policy and lastly 12) innovations, lessons learned and good practices. UNICEF has a presence in 190 countries and the main focus of its work is in the field, and this is carried out by the regional offices. Overall management and administration of the organization takes place at the headquarters in New York. There are specialized offices like the Supply Division, based in Copenhagen, which provides essential items like life-saving vaccines. There are 36 National Committees for UNICEF and they are focused in industrialized countries, and generally are the way in which people first hear about UNICEF.
In 2012, UNICEF had a total revenue of about $3,958 million dollars. 57% of this came from various governments, 32% came from private sector and non governmental organizations. Most of their expenditures go towards program development and implementation ($3416 million), estimated at about 90% of their expenditures. Contributions, gifts and grants make up the majority of their revenue. As of 2012, the Trick or Treat for UNICEF campaign had raised approximately $167 million in the United States. The top ten sources of funding for UNICEF are the Central Emergency Response Fund of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, and donations from the United States, Sweden, The European Commission HUmanitarian Aid Office, the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Japan, Canada, and the German National Committee for UNICEF. Donations by individual governments are voluntary. In the United States, the State Department makes a recommendation to Congress, which frequently increases the figure due to popular support for the charity.
UNICEF does not work with local or federal policies instead they work on a more international realm helping developing nations and countries that are extremely poverty stricken. Countries such as Nepal and Malawi have been on the agenda and have been countries where UNICEF has focused their efforts. They have used partnerships and advocacy to set up campaigns to help with awareness and infrastructure of programs. Afterwards the government of that country will adopt the programs and continue them throughout. Eventually these programs or initiatives become policies for the future.
NYU Public Health Professions and Practice 