26th March, 2010, Rio De Janeiro , - Basic services that are collapsing or non-existent, overcrowding, pollution: these are big-city problems that are compounded in developing countries by poverty and inequality.According to the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT), 40 urban "mega-regions" are home to 18 percent of the world's population. They also concentrate 66 percent of economic activity and 85 percent of all scientific and technological progress.But these hallmarks of urban progress that encouraged a mass exodus from rural areas to cities are not ultimately reflected in human development indicators, participants concluded in a number of debates and discussions at the ...

19th March 2010, Rome, "The availability of water and its access are fundamentally important conditions which help to guarantee not only the health of many children but also the development of communities.  Until water is a right given to all, is difficult to imagine progress in health conditions and survival for millions of families Water will become even more endangered by environmental and climatic change. If the global community is not determined to resolve the problem of climate change, whole territories will become deserts without water. There will be a greater frequency and intensity of floods, and torrential rains will increase the incidence of illnesses that are carried in water ...

10 March, 2010, Barcelona. It is with profound sadness that we have learnt of the killings of six World Vision International employees in northwestern Pakistan today. The Global Movement for Children wishes to offer its condolences to the affected families, friends and colleagues. It is a great loss for all of us committed to bringing positive change to the world. Today’s act of gruesome atrocity against WVI’s workers deserves our unequivocal and strongest condemnation. We are shocked and appalled by extremists’ brutality and desire to shed the blood of innocent people; people who are no one’s enemy and who work for poor and vulnerable children, without prejudice against any creed. T...

19, January, 2010, United Nations Development Programme - Beyond the Midpoint: Achieving the Millennium Development Goals is UNDP’s forward-looking review of the factors that shape MDG progress, along with the constraints and bottlenecks that have hampered MDG achievement in many countries. The findings build on MDG assessments in 30 countries that were undertaken for this review.The report shows that while there has been notable progress on many targets and indicators across countries, it is clear that much more needs to be done for MDG achievements to be realized by 2015.Beyond the Midpoint stresses that there are four key factors that shape progress at the country level:1. Policy choice...

The Convention was meant to transform society, as it recognised that children are protagonists of their own development instead of being possessions of their parents and families. It required from society to act in the best interest of the child, and acknowledged their right to express their opinions and to have those opinions heard and acted upon when appropriate. 192 countries have ratified the Convention, making it the most universal human rights instrument of our time. Why getting together again? While important progress has occurred in these 20 years, millions of children in the world still do not fully enjoy their rights. This is why, this year, the child rights movement gets toge...

Preventing infants and young children from becoming undernourished is much more effective than treating children who are already malnourished, according to a new study published in the 16 February issue of leading medical journal The Lancet. The study in Haiti found that three indicators of child malnutrition—stunting, being underweight and wasting—were between four and six percentage points lower among poor communities participating in preventative nutrition programmes rather than recuperative ones. “While these numbers may not seem dramatic, the differences between the groups are substantial, especially considering the challenges of improving childhood nutrition in poor communitie...