Children first: the story of UNICEF, past and present

Celebrating UNICEF's 50th anniversary in 1996, this survey examines recent changes in public attitudes and government policies which have put the welfare of children at the top of the international agenda in the 1990s. Starting from the International Year of the Child in 1979, the author studies the two movements which have done most to raise the visibility of children in the public consciousness: the child survival campaign, which culminated in the 1990 World Summit for Children; and the movement for children's rights, which resulted in the 1989 International Convention on the Rights of the Child, now ratified by 177 countries. The text explores what brought these two movements such unprecedented success, and asks whether this new-found concern for the world's children is likely to last.