Since 2000, we have celebrated increases in the number of children enrolled in school worldwide. But now, the hard work really begins. New research released today indicates that progress has stalled. Given this trend, I fear we will not achieve the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education by 2015. Why the slowdown? We… Read more →←
Topic: Data and research
7.5 million young people aged 15-24 — roughly the total population of Switzerland — were not in employment, education or training (referred to as ‘NEET’) across the European Union in 2013. In Greece alone it was one in five, nearly a quarter of a million young people. The UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti will later… Read more →←
Numbers, facts and figures can be daunting. Discuss too much data and people’s eyes are sure to glaze over. But let me assure you, data can make all the difference. The Out-of-School Children Initiative is an example of how UNICEF and its partners use numbers, facts and figures to change children’s lives. On the Day of the African… Read more →←
Virtually unknown in high income countries, tetanus is a disease related to poverty and inequity. Despite being entirely preventable, neonatal tetanus – a swift and painful killer – remains a burden in 25 countries where vaccination fails to reach all mothers-to-be, and where women deliver and care for their newborns in unhygienic… Read more →←
We have been impatiently awaiting the preliminary report of the second Demographic and Health Survey (DHS II) 2013/2014 which has finally been published, and contains news which surpasses all our expectations. The very good news is that the under-five mortality rate has fallen from 148 per 1000 live births in 2007 to 104 per 1000 live… Read more →←
A woman is seen cradling her infant in this photograph taken in 2014 by photographer Kate Holt at the Mwembeladu Maternity Home in Zanzibar in the United Republic of Tanzania. She is using ‘kangaroo care’, where mothers with no access to incubators hold their preterm babies constantly against their skin to keep them warm. Millions of… Read more →←
Innovation has become a major priority for UNICEF A big part of our work in innovation means exploring new ideas and technology – even some technology that can be seemingly controversial. In mid-March, UNICEF video producer Nerina Penzhorn and I visited Pia Zaragoza, a graduate student at New York University’s Interactive… Read more →←
Four months after the new school year was meant to start in Central African Republic in October, we knew very little about what was happening in classrooms throughout the country. Since December 2012, the ongoing ethnic and religious fighting has decimated the school system. The chain of reporting between principals, school inspectors… Read more →←
Pneumonia and diarrhoea are the two greatest causes of death in children younger than 5 years of age. In 2010 and 2011, children in lower-income countries started to receive vaccines to protect them against these two diseases. Meanwhile, children living in industrialized economies had started receiving these vaccines some eight years… Read more →←
One in seven people still practice open defecation – shockingly the vast majority live in middle-income countries, in other words countries which have the resources to address the problem. This is especially the case for India, home to almost 600 million people with no sanitation facility whatsoever and the target of a recent… Read more →←