Innovation for every child

The Convention on the Rights of the Child has helped drive remarkable progress for millions of children, yet far too many are still being left behind. The magnitude of progress has been profound in key areas such as child survival, education, access to clean water, but too many children globally and in South Africa still confront the future with their needs unaddressed, their rights unrealised and their potential thwarted. 

The world’s low-income countries remain home to concentrations of poverty and disadvantage, and we now see that most impoverished children live in middle-income countries with the greatest income inequalities. Deprivation is disproportionately concentrated in urban slums and remote rural areas and among such marginalised groups as ethnic minorities and people with disabilities. 

Worldwide, 79% of the richest children under the age of five have their births registered while only 51% of the poorest enjoy the right to an official identity. And while 80% of children living in cities are registered, this is true for only 51% of those living in the countryside. 

The poorest 20% of the world’s children are twice as likely as the richest 20% to be stunted by poor nutrition and to die before their fifth birthday. Children in rural areas are at a similar disadvantage compared to those who live in urban areas. Nearly nine in 10 children from the wealthiest 20% of households in the world’s least developed countries attend primary school compared to only about six in 10 from the poorest households. 

This year’s State of the World’s Children report focuses on innovation that Unicef is helping to develop. And much of its content is crowd-sourced, emerging out of the experiences and insights of people who are actively working to make the world better for every child. 

Over the past year, Unicef has convened a continuing series of “Activate Talks,” global symposia that are bringing together young inventors, innovators, business people, artists and others to talk about the innovation they see, need, and are helping to drive. Many of their stories are included in the essays and ideas presented in the report. 

In fact, this year’s report includes the greatest number of essays — by the greatest number of young people — since Unicef published the first State of the World’s Children in 1980. 

This is also the first fully digital State of the World’s Children, with interactive, multimedia and traditional content. 

Users are invited to personalise their experience by browsing through categories or by tailoring the content with a series of tags, allowing them to engage with the ideas that mean the most to them.

#IMAGINE

As part of Unicef’s celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, it has launched The IMAGINE Project: Every Child Counts, Every Voice Counts. This is a global initiative to raise awareness of children’s rights especially for the most vulnerable children and to help move more donor action to support Unicef’s work to advance children’s rights. 

IMAGINE brings together Unicef, music producer and DJ David Guetta, artist Yoko Ono, and other innovative music, technology and distribution partners.  Across the world, ordinary people are invited to use a new mobile app to record John Lennon’s song  Imagine and then upload their version through social media platforms to help encourage others to do the same. 

The app will enable people in every country to contribute to a new, million-voice version of IMAGINE, which will be produced by David Guetta, and released through an ever-changing interactive music video, “world” version of IMAGINE, for Unicef.  Contributors will also have the opportunity to record their own version and share it through Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social media — and to encourage their friends, family, and fans to do the same.  

The “I imagine…” message allows people to describe in one brief sentence — which should include the word “children” — how they imagine a better world for children. This will be a message recorded through the app, after the song recording is completed, and can also be uploaded through social media. The more imaginative the message, the better. Examples could include “I imagine a world for children where bullets become butterflies” and “I imagine that 2015 will be a better year for children”.

The “I imagine …” message and selected verses of the song can also be recorded in different languages to show the diversity of the world’s participants. The million voices “world” version of Imagine (with accompanying music video) will be produced by David Guetta, released globally by end December, and will include different languages.  

www.unicef.org