China Calls for More Effective Efforts for Child Development

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, May 09, 2002

China Calls for More Effective Efforts for Child Development

China on Wednesday called for "decisive and coordinated" efforts at national, regional and global levels to create a brighter future for children.

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China on Wednesday called for "decisive and coordinated" efforts at national, regional and global levels to create a brighter future for children.

The Special Session on Children

The Special Session on Children, to be held 8-10 May 2002, is an unprecedented meeting of the UN General Assembly dedicated to the children and adolescents of the world. It will bring together government leaders and Heads of State, NGOs, children's advocates and young people themselves at the United Nations in New York in 2002. The gathering will present a great opportunity to change the way the world views and treats children. In detail

The appeal came as Chinese State Councilor Wu Yi was speaking to the U.N. General Assembly Special Session on Children, which opened at the U.N. headquarters in New York.

"To show concern for children is to show concern for the future of mankind," said Wu, who is also head of the Chinese delegation to the special session. "To protect children is to protect our future."

"We have already ushered in a new century, high and new technologies are advancing leaps and bounds," she said. "The enormous strength and huge resources in the hands of mankind for poverty alleviation and development offers both the possibility and promises for the further promotion of the survival, protection and development of children."

"We urgently need to take decisive and coordinated actions at national, regional and global levels to further implement the follow-up actions of the World Summit for Children and to effectively respond to new issues and challenges so as to create a brighter future for children," she said.

Wu dwelled on China's proposals for the protection and development of children.

First, "Children first" should be the basic principle for child development

"With the foresight of being responsible for the future generations, all governments should further incorporate child development in their national economic and social development strategies and set their targets and programs for action for child development in light of their national conditions," she said.

Efforts should be made to strengthen the protection of the legitimate rights and interests of children, continuously improve laws and rules and regulations and create a favorable environment for children's healthy growth, she said.

"In addition, while giving full play to the leading role of the central government in addressing children's issues, it is necessary to mobilize all social forces, including nongovernmental organizations, private sectors, communities and families, to push for an all-round development of the cause of children," she said.

Secondly, the eradication of poverty is the prerequisite for child development

"Children are the biggest victims of poverty, and poverty presents severe challenges to children's dignity and fundamental rights," she said. "To solve the question of child development at its root, it is essential to start with the process of eradicating poverty."

Therefore, all governments and the international community must take every possible measure to reduce poverty and provide more and balanced development and narrow the gap between regions and nations so that all children will benefit from economic globalization and technological advancement and that social justice and fairness will be attained, she said.

Thirdly, an urgent task for child development is to highlight the priorities

"We support the current special session in its effort to set a feasible child development objective and take corresponding measures targeted at the outstanding issues in the area of child development in countries, regions and across the world."

"More attention should be paid to these issues and additional input should be made in terms of personnel, resources and funds," she said.

Fourthly, international cooperation is an important guarantee for child development

"Effective international cooperation is indispensable for the settlement of child issues in the world," she said.

"The developed countries have the responsibility and obligations to provide funds for the developing countries, transfer technologies useful to the protection and development of children, the low-cost disease-preventing technologies in particular, and help strengthen the capacity of developing countries in the field of child development," she said.

"More importantly, the developed countries should honor their commitments in terms of fund, technology, debt and trade, create favorable external development environment for the developing countries, and narrow the gap between the North and the South so as to enable the latter to put more resources in the survival, protection and development of children," she said.

The current special session is scheduled to close on Friday.

China Issued Children's Development Program for Coming Decade

The State Council of China last year released a program aimed at promoting the development of the national children's cause in the first decade of the new century. The 10,000-word program mainly consists of a foreword and sections on major objectives and policies, organization and implementation, supervision and appraisal. The program sets a series of objectives and comes up with corresponding measures, with an end to ensure Chinese children have sound health, education, environment and legal protection in the decade from 2001 to 2010. A nationwide supervision and appraisal system will also be developed to guarantee the smooth and efficient implementation of the program.

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