Written evidence submitted by UNICEF
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. The UK National Committee for UNICEF welcomes
the opportunity to submit evidence to the International Development
Committee's inquiry into the Department for International Development
(DFID) Annual Report and Resource Accounts 2009-10 published on
22 July 2010.
1.2. UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund,
is mandated by the United Nations General Assembly to advocate
for the protection of children's rights, to help meet their basic
needs and to expand their opportunities to reach their full potential.
UNICEF is guided by the United Nations Convention on the Rights
of the Child (CRC) and strives to establish children's rights
as enduring ethical principles and international standards of
behaviour towards children.
2. SUMMARY
2.1 Ensuring children's rights are upheld and
fulfilled around the world is central to all UNICEFs work to improve
the lives of children and young people. We therefore welcome DFID's
commitment to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
2.2 Achieving the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) will require more than just funding, but adequate resourcing
is a precondition for ensuring that children's rights around the
world are met. We strongly support the commitment to reaching
0.7% of GNI for official development assistance (ODA) by 2013
and look forward to the early introduction of this into legislation.
However, developing countries are increasingly under strain due
to climate change and additional funding is needed to enable them
to adapt to its consequences. We recommend that funding for climate
change adaptation and mitigation overseas must be additional to
the 0.7% ODA commitment.
2.3 There is an equity gap in progress toward
the MDGs with the most vulnerable, who are often children, missing
out. Ensuring that we achieve the shared goal of achieving the
MDGs requires DFID to focus its assistance where it is most needed
and use an equity approach.
2.4 A new study by UNICEF demonstrates that while
an equity approach is both morally and strategically right, it
is also the most practical and cost-effective way of meeting the
MDGs for children. National burdens of disease, under-nutrition,
ill health, illiteracy and many protection abuses are concentrated
in the most impoverished populations. Providing these children
with essential services through an equity-focused approach to
child survival and development has great potential to accelerate
progress and could also bring improved returns on investment by
averting far more child and maternal deaths and episodes of under-nutrition
and markedly expanding effective coverage of key primary health
and nutrition interventions. We therefore recommend that DFID
considers this evidence and mainstreams an equity approach.
2.5 DFID must prioritise climate change as a
key element in all their work and seek to ensure "climate
compatible development" - minimising harm from the impacts
of climate change and harnessing opportunities presented by a
transition to a low carbon future, whilst promoting poverty reduction
and human development. Providing support to adaptation and disaster
risk reduction projects in countries vulnerable to climate change
and mainstreaming adaptive strategies in programming in countries
that are likely to be affected by climate change will be a critical
component of this. Evidence shows that child-focused disaster
risk reduction programmes can be very effective and efficient
in achieving development objectives.
2.6 The new Government's position on achieving
the goal of Universal Access to HIV services remains unclear.
UNICEF UK believes that it critical that DFID, as global frontrunners
in the international HIV response, maintain the momentum and efforts
invested in tackling HIV, for example through ensuring adequate
financing of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria.
2.7 Progress toward achieving the MDG target
on sanitation remains severely off track. Therefore DFID's support
for the Sanitation and Water for All Partnership is a key factor
in ensuring access to water and sanitation continues to be scaled
up. UNICEF UK therefore recommends that DFID continues and increases
this support.
2.8 There is an expectation that the next Spending
Review will increase DFID's budget and that the ongoing reviews
will aim to increase spending in fragile states and improve the
focus on results. These changes will require significant capacity
to deliver, and pose questions about the capacity of DFID to manage
if also tasked with further reducing their administration costs.
We therefore recommend that a new approach is taken to improving
the efficiency of DFID, which recognises their growing budget,
the wider value for money agenda of DFID and their international
responsibilities.
3. DFID'S
OVERALL APPROACH:
ACHIEVING THE
MDGS AND
AID DELIVERY
3.1 Ensuring children's rights are upheld and
fulfilled around the world is central to all UNICEF's work to
improve the lives of children and young people. We therefore welcome
DFID's commitment to achieving the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs). Children and young people are the most vulnerable in society
and the most affected by the global recession, climate change
and conflict and yet they are the least responsible. We acknowledge
the increasing difficulties of pursuing the commitment to the
MDGs throughout the economic downturn but believe that it is essential
to ensure the rights of millions of children around the world
are fulfilled. However, there are several areas in which we feel
DFID could go further to increase the effectiveness of UK aid
in achieving outcomes for children and young people which are
outlined in this submission.
3.2 Achieving the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) will require more than just funding, but adequate resourcing
is a precondition for ensuring that children's rights around the
world are met. We strongly support the commitment to reaching
0.7% of GNI for official development assistance (ODA) by 2013
and look forward to the early introduction of this into legislation.
However, it is clear that developing countries are increasingly
under strain due to climate change and that additional funding
is needed to enable them to adapt to its consequences. DFID must
therefore maintain their existing 10% cap on ODA spending for
climate change. Other funding for climate change adaptation and
mitigation overseas must be additional to the 0.7% ODA commitment.
3.3 We believe that innovative ways should also
be explored as a way to raise additional resources. For example,
new taxes on the financial sector in the UK could raise up to
£20 billion per year, of which £10 billion per year
could be used to support international development and adaptation
to climate change.
3.4 There has been notable and encouraging progress
since 1990 toward the MDGs. For example, the global under five
mortality rate has fallen from 90 deaths per 1,000 live births
to 65 in 2008, an additional 1.8 billion people now have access
to clean water and the proportion of the population using improved
sanitation facilities has increased from 54% to 61% in 2008[275].
While this progress can be attributed to many separate, but interlinked
factors, increased flows of ODA have made a substantial contribution.
3.5 DFID was established with a remit to reduce
global poverty and has built up a well-earned reputation as a
global champion for international development. This was demonstrated
clearly recently by the UK's early leadership in response to the
devastating floods in Pakistan. Countries and agencies around
the world look to the UK for leadership in this area and this
will be critical if we are to achieve the MDGs. We have therefore
noted with interest that DFID have embarked on a systematic review
of their bilateral, multilateral and humanitarian activities and
we hope that these reviews will help provide the basis for a renewed
focus of DFID's activities on achieving the MDGs and attaining
outcomes for all children.
3.6 Achieving the MDGs over the next five years
will require an increased focus on improved outcomes. For DFID
therefore, an integral part of this should be in ensuring they
have clear and specific objectives in place to guide decision
making and measure progress against intentions. It is thus of
concern that DFID have recently dropped several of their public
commitments which allowed partners to monitor progress in these
areas. In order to ensure maximum effectiveness and transparency
of aid we recommend that DFID replace these dropped commitments
with output focused targets aimed at benchmarking their contribution
toward the MDGs.
3.7 In addition to reviewing the outcomes that
UK ODA is aimed at achieving it is expected that the ongoing reviews
will also consider the ways in which aid is delivered. Despite
international efforts to improve the coordination of aid delivery
many countries still receive aid from many different sources.
Multilateral agencies play a crucial role in making the aid system
better coordinated, efficient and effective. Multilaterals also
play a unique role in helping the international community respond
collectively to humanitarian crises. A 2008 survey of progress
in implementing the Paris Declaration on aid effectiveness shows
that the scores of multilaterals are higher than the scores of
bilateral donors on most indicators[276].
3.8 Multilateral aid is untied (from being spent
on donor country goods and services) and tends to be more insulated
from the political agendas of donor countries. It also allows
for the efficient pooling of financial resources - donors who
may only give a small contribution will see their money go much
further when combined with that of others. In addition, multilateral
aid programmes tend to be more stable and longer-term than bilateral
aid programmes as they are not as subject to sudden change as
a result of political or economic shifts. In fact, multilateral
spending is also more flexible in the short term as demonstrated
by responses to the recent economic and food crises[277].
3.9 Given these advantages we recommend that
DFID continues to support multilateral organisations as effective
partners in achieving the MDGs.
4. ACHIEVING
THE MDGS
FOR ALL:
THE NEED
FOR AN
EQUITY BASED
APPROACH
4.1 November 2010 marks the 21st anniversary
of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).
When the UK Government ratified the CRC in 1991, it committed
itself to undertake all actions and policies in the light of the
best interests of the child and to protect and ensure children's
rights through UK international development policy[278].
4.2 Although DFID's work has greatly benefited
children across the world, without greater recognition of children's
rights and the use of an equity based approach, which ensures
we reach all children including those currently missing out, DFID
are missing a key opportunity to make real progress towards addressing
climate change and achieving the MDGs.
4.3 As new data makes clear[279]
there is an equity gap in progress toward the MDGs with the most
vulnerable, who are often children, missing out. Ensuring that
we achieve the shared goal of achieving the MDGs requires DFID
to focus their assistance where it is most needed. With the majority
of progress still to be made within fragile states it is of vital
importance that the UK's development activities in these countries
retain the rights of children at their heart and that development
assistance is directed at and focused on the most vulnerable,
those whose lives will otherwise be most blighted by poverty,
exclusion and discrimination.
4.4 Yet, the current gains made towards realising
the MDGs are largely based on improvements in national averages;
a growing concern is that this conceals broad and widening disparities
in poverty and children's development both among regions and within
countries. For example, falling national averages of child mortality
conceal widening inequities. Out of 26 countries which have experienced
at least a 10% drop in under five mortality since 1990, 18 have
also seen the gap between the mortality rates of the richest and
poorest quintiles grow, in 10 of these countries this gap has
increased by at least 10%[280].
Compared with their wealthiest peers, children from the poorest
households are twice as likely to die before they reach five years
old. It is therefore critical, in order to address these marked
disparities and reach the MDGs, that a greater emphasis is placed
on equity among and within regions and countries.
4.5 A new study by UNICEF also demonstrates that
while this kind of approach is both morally and strategically
right it is also the most practical and cost-effective way of
meeting the MDGs for children[281].
It finds that national burdens of disease, under-nutrition, ill
health, illiteracy and many protection abuses are concentrated
in the most impoverished child populations. Therefore, providing
these children with essential services through an equity approach
to child survival and development has greater potential to accelerate
progress than a business as usual approach. In addition, it concludes
that an equity approach could bring vastly improved returns on
investment by averting far more child and maternal deaths and
episodes of under-nutrition and markedly expand effective coverage
of key primary health and nutrition interventions.
4.6 We therefore recommend that DFID considers
this evidence and mainstreams an equity approach.
5. ACHIEVING
THE MDGS
AND DFID'S
APPROACH TO
CLIMATE CHANGE
5.1 Climate change disproportionately affects
the most vulnerable people in the poorest countries, who are often
children, despite the fact that these people are the least to
blame for the problem. Recent research for UNICEF UK demonstrates
the real and growing impact of climate change on children in Kenya[282].
As this report makes clear children are highly vulnerable to these
changes, which have the potential to affect many aspects of their
lives, including education, health and welfare. DFID must therefore
seek to further prioritise responses to climate change.
5.2 Spending money on climate change adaptation
and mitigation is also an effective investment. Without this,
the impacts of climate change will undo progress made toward other
development goals. For example, the recent UNDP Stocktaking report
on the MDGs states that without funding and action on climate
change none of the MDGs will be met. We therefore believe that
DFID should lead the way in providing support to long term programming
to address the causes and impacts of climate change. This will
prevent funding for other key development goals being diverted
as the impacts of climate change become more urgent, for example
through an increase in natural disasters.
5.3 DFID must also prioritise climate change
as a key element in all their work and seek to ensure "climate
compatible development" - minimising harm from the impacts
of climate change and harnessing opportunities presented by the
transition to a low carbon future whilst promoting poverty reduction
and human development. Providing support to adaptation projects
in countries vulnerable to climate change and mainstreaming adaptive
strategies in countries that are likely to be affected by climate
change will be a critical component of this. For example, the
increased risk of flooding can lead to an increased risk of contaminated
water, which in turn leads to the spread of waterborne diseases
such as cholera and diarrhoea. However, adapting projects aimed
at increasing access to water and sanitation facilities by raising
them above the ground ("step latrines") can help prevent
contamination by dirty floodwater. Programmes by UNICEF in the
Philippines have found these flood proof sanitation facilities
can prevent the spread of diseases and halt potential epidemics[283].
DFID must therefore maintain their support for these vital adaptation
programmes.
5.4 In addition, a child rights-based approach
to adaptation programmes in developing countries would prioritise
children and involve them in programme design and delivery.
Evidence shows that child-focused disaster risk reduction programmes
can be effective and efficient in achieving development objectives[284].
Children and young people are our best chance of adopting sustainable
adaption policies and good environmental practice. UNICEF UK would
therefore like DFID to recognise children as part of the solution,
rather than just the victims, particularly in adaptation programmes
in developing countries.
5.5 Climate change will lead to an increase in
the frequency and uncertainty of natural disasters. Investing
in effective disaster risk reduction programmes is and will continue
to be a key adaptation response to this. Disaster risk reduction
will reduce the impact of such disasters on vulnerable communities,
in particular children, and will allow communities to be prepared
in the face of increasing disaster uncertainty. Evidence also
demonstrates that child focused disaster risk reduction strategies
can help address the specific risks faced by children in disasters,
where they are often the most vulnerable[285].
Investment in disaster risk reduction can also be a sound economy
by reducing the volume of emergency response needed. While DFID
have actively promoted an increased focus on disaster risk reduction
only a small amount has been child focused.
6. HIV AND
AIDS
6.1 DFID have been champions of the commitment
to achieve Universal Access to HIV treatment, prevention, care
and support. Their leadership together with global momentum has
delivered impressive progress, for example there has been a ten
fold increase in the number of people accessing antiretroviral
treatment over just five years[286]
with coverage reaching more than four million people by the end
of 2008. However, with the deadline for achieving Universal Access
occurring this year it is clear that we have missed these ambitious
targets. At the end of 2008 only 38% of children in need of treatment
received it and only two in five mothers with HIV had access to
the medicine and health care services they needed to ensure their
babies were born free from HIV.
6.2 Yet, in many countries HIV continues to have
a significant and cross cutting impact on the development agenda
and endangers achievement of the MDGs. It is therefore clear that
the efforts of the past five years in scaling up the response
to HIV must continue. As highlighted earlier in this submission
in order to achieve long lasting and equitable progress DFID should
ensure children's rights and an equitable approach are placed
at the centre of the implementation of the HIV Strategy.
6.3 While 5 people are infected with HIV for
every two placed on antiretroviral treatment there is an urgent
need to scale up action to prevent new HIV infections. With 45%
of new infections taking place in young people, addressing new
infections within the 15-24 year age group is critical to addressing
the HIV epidemic[287].
Young people need access to information on how to protect themselves
against HIV infection and they need access to youth friendly HIV
services that are integrated within existing health provision.
In addition to this, young people also need a safe and supportive
environment, which enables them to use both their knowledge and
access to health services to reduce their risk and vulnerability
to HIV infection. While DFID's commitment to health systems is
crucial in providing aspects of this spectrum of service provision
it remains unclear where financing for the creation of safe and
supportive environments will be provided from. As evidence from
Tanzania and Zimbabwe demonstrates without access to this kind
of environment, HIV prevention efforts will continue to have a
limited long term impact[288].
6.4 Yet, the new Government's position on achieving
the Universal Access targets remains unclear. UNICEF UK believe
that it is critical that DFID, as global frontrunners in the international
HIV response, maintains the momentum and efforts invested in tackling
HIV, for example through ensuring adequate financing of the Global
Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria.
7. WATER
AND SANITATION
7.1 UNICEF UK has welcomed DFID championing the
Sanitation and Water for All Partnership over the past two years.
This partnership aims to coordinate and promote global action
on water and sanitation and successfully held its inaugural meeting
in April 2010. While significant progress has been made in expanding
access to clean water since 1990, inadequate access to safe water
and sanitation services coupled with poor hygiene practices still
kills around 4,000 children everyday. It also sickens, impoverishes
and diminishes opportunities for many thousands more.
7.2 Climate change is also expected to make access
to water and sanitation more challenging, in different areas this
could lead to an increased risk of both droughts and flooding.
In the long term ensuring that water and sanitation facilities
are climate proof will help reduce the impact of future emergencies
on service provision.
7.3 Progress toward achieving the MDG target
on sanitation remains severely off track, therefore DFID's support
for the Sanitation and Water for All Partnership is a key factor
in ensuring this is scaled up and the target is achieved. UNICEF
UK therefore recommends that DFID continue and increase this support.
8. SOCIAL
PROTECTION
8.1 Social protection can be a key method for
reducing vulnerabilities to global challenges by facilitating
access to essential services and decent living standards,. There
is clear evidence that social protection contributes to the achievement
of MDGs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 with larger impacts for the disadvantaged[289].
In his report to the General Assembly the UN Secretary General
went further and stated that "progress must be protected
in an era of increased economic insecurity, volatile food prices,
natural disasters and health epidemics. This requires universal
social protection and measures to support the most vulnerable
communities"[290].
8.2 However, it is essential that social protection
programmes are child sensitive and equity based. Children's experiences
of poverty and vulnerabilities are multidimensional and differ
from that of adults. Thus, social protection should be focused
on addressing the inherent social disadvantages, risks and vulnerabilities
that children may be born into as well as those acquired later
in childhood due to external shocks. Therefore, this is best achieved
through integrated child protection approaches.
8.3 UNICEF UK has welcomed DFID's past support
for social protection and we hope this will continue given the
historical opportunity to expand social protection in developing
countries in the aftermath of the global crisis. However, DFID
should also review the design and implementation of their social
protection policies to ensure they are child sensitive and equity
based in order to maximise their impact.
9. REDUCTION
IN DFID'S
ADMINISTRATION COSTS
9.1 Over the past five year Spending Review period
DFID have achieved significant reductions in administration costs.
DFID's budget has grown steadily over the past five years and
in order for the UK to reach its target of providing 0.7% of GNI
to ODA by 2013 is expected to increase further by around £1
billion per year over the next three year period.
9.2 While the reductions in administration costs
may have helped DFID operate more efficiently, the extent to which
further efficiency savings can be made without damaging their
capacity to achieve maximum effectiveness of a growing UK ODA
budget is questionable. These concerns have been raised by the
International Development Committee in previous enquiries, where
the Committee recommended that DFID should be exempt from future
Government efficiency targets[291].
The Cabinet Office has also raised concerns[292]
about the added strains being placed on DFID.
9.3 There is an expectation that the next Spending
Review will increase DFID's budget and that the ongoing reviews
will aim to increase spending in fragile states and increase the
focus on results. These changes will require significant capacity
to deliver, and pose questions about the capacity of DFID to manage
this if also tasked with further reducing its administration costs.
9.4 We therefore recommend that a new approach
is taken to improving the efficiency of DFID, which recognises
their growing budget, the wider value for money agenda for DFID
and their international responsibilities.
275 UNICEF, Progress for Children: Achieving the MDGs
with Equity, September 2010 Back
276 OECD
DAC ReportonMultilateralAid, 2008 Back
277
OECDDACReportonMultilateralAid, 2010 Back
278
Article 4 of the CRC states that "all States Parties shall
undertake all appropriate legislative, administrative, and other
measures for the implementation of the rights recognized in the
present Convention… States Parties shall [also] undertake
such measures … within the framework of international co-operation".
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/crc.htm Back
279
UNICEF, Progress for Children: Achieving the MDGs with Equity,
September 2010 Back
280
UNICEF, Progress for Children: Achieving the MDGs with Equity,
September 2010 Back
281
UNICEF, Narrowing the Gaps to Meet the Goals, September 2010 Back
282
UNICEF UK, Climate Change in Kenya: Focus on Children, 2010 Back
283
UNICEF UK, Climate Change in Kenya: Focus on Children, 2010 Back
284
Emma Back, Catherine Cameron and Thomas Tanner, Children and Disaster
Risk Reduction: Taking Stock and Moving Forward, 2009 Back
285
Emma Back, Catherine Cameron and Thomas Tanner, Children and Disaster
Risk Reduction: Taking Stock and Moving Forward, 2009 Back
286
UNAIDS, Global Facts and Figures from the 2009 report on the
global AIDS epidemic, November 2009 (p.2). Back
287
UNICEF UK 2009, Preventing HIV with Young People: The Key to
Tackling the Epidemic. Back
288
Mema Kwa Vijana and Regai Dzive Shiri. Rethinking how to prevent
in young people: Evidence from two large randomised controlled
trials in Tanzania and Zimbabwe. Policy Briefing Paper No.
10 Nov 2008.
Back
289
UNICEF, Social Protection: Accelerating the MDGs with Equity,
Social and Economic Policy Working Briefs, August 2010 Back
290
UN Secretary General, Keeping the Promise: a forward looking review
to promote an agreed action agenda to achieve the Millennium Development
Goals by 2015', Report to the UN General Assembly 2010. Back
291
Report from the IDC inquiry on "DFID's Annual Report 2008",
paragraph 81 Back
292
DFID's 2009 Capability Review, "DFID, progress and next steps",
p11 Back
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