From DEBRA@oln.comlink.apc.orgThu Sep 7 10:22:28 1995 Date: Tue, 05 Sep 1995 14:45:00 +0100 From: Debra Guzman Reply to: beijing-conf@tristram.edc.org To: beijing-conf@tristram.edc.org Subject: WCW: Unicef's Carol Bellamy at Beijing [The following text is in the "ISO-8859-1" character set] [Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set] [Some characters may be displayed incorrectly] ## author : theearthtime@igc.apc.org ## date : 05.09.95 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Unicef's Carol Bellamy at Beijing By Elizabeth Bryant Earth Times News Service Carol Bellamy says she steps into a time warp when she examines women's issues, and indeed many of the issues--equal education, economic opportunity and the like--her organization cares passionately about. "I try to see things through a children's eyes in whatever I do," said the lean, intense director of the United Nation's Children's Fund. "Children see things very honestly. They've got a clear, unbiased point of view." Bellamy's focus has most recently been on the bracketed areas of the draft Programme of Action that assess the special plight of girls; from prostitution, to female genital mutilation, to giving boys more food than girls. Not only is Unicef lobbying to remove these brackets, but it is pushing hard not to undo the achievements of Cairo's population Conference, or the 1989 Convention of the Rights of the Child, Bellamy said, but rather to build upon them. And, she added, "ratification is one thing, implementation is another." Bellamy said she was not targeting countries like China, whose record regarding girl children is spotty, but rather trying to improve the status of girls globally. "We work with governments," she said. "We're not here to attack governments." With $20 million invested annually for development programs targeted on programs such as health, education, clean water and sanitation, Unicef's 16-year presence in China is potent. The country has already made big strides in reducing infant and child mortality rates and increasing those for primary education, Bellamy said. Unicef also runs programs in health and education in Tibet. Appointed as Unicef's director last May, Bellamy has straddled the worlds of corporate finance, domestic politics and international development. During the 1960s, she served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala; she became Peace Corps director 30 years later, before joining Unicef. Under her directorship, Bellamy has set forth the twin goals of making Unicef a leader in pushing for woman's rights, and ensuring basic Unicef goals--including universal access to water, sanitation and basic education for 80 percent of the world's children--are achieved by the year 2000. And, despite reports of mismanagement within the organization this year, Bellamy said she hoped to make Unicef the best run of the UN agencies. As for the Beijing Conference, Bellamy said a clean, unbracketed Programme of Action should not be the only objective. "Women also gain a lot just by networking," she said. In that capacity, she added, the Conference could already be judged a success.