[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 102 (Wednesday, June 21, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8834-S8835]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                  UNICEF ASKS BROADER AID FOR CHILDREN

 Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, recently, Barbara Crossette had an 
article in the New York Times titled, ``UNICEF Asks Broader Aid For 
Children.''
  The article quotes the new head of UNICEF, appointed by the President 
of the United States, Carol Bellamy, as saying the United States should 
do better in our response to the needs abroad.
  I could not agree with her more.
  I hope we do not diminish the United States contribution to world 
stability by cutting back on foreign aid, as we seem destined to do 
right now.
  I ask that the Barbara Crossette piece be entered into the Record at 
this point.
  The article follows:

                [From the New York Times, June 12, 1995]

                  Unicef Asks Broader Aid For Children

                         (By Barbara Crossette)

       United Nations, June 9--The United States now ranks lowest 
     among 21 industrial countries in the amount of foreign aid it 
     gives in relation to its gross national product, according to 
     a new study by Unicef, the United Nations Children's Fund.
       Although American aid is second only to Japan's in 
     dollars--$9.7 billion as calculated by international 
     organizations using 1993 figures--it represents 15 hundredths 
     of 1 percent of G.N.P.
       The Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands lead the 
     list, with levels above 80 hundredths of 1 percent, and in 
     those countries, as in the United States, aid budgets are 
     facing new cuts.
       The general reduction in foreign aid comes at a time when 
     Unicef is urging all countries to look at the situation of 
     children in the broadest terms, including the environments in 
     which their mothers live.
       ``The child can't really be seen as separate and on an 
     island,'' said Carol Bellamy, Unicef's executive director. 
     ``You can adopt some concrete objectives and go out and seek 
     to achieve them, but the child has to be seen in the broader 
     context of the community.''
       In an interview here last week before leaving for Berlin, 
     where she released the report [[Page S 8835]] today, Ms. 
     Bellamy said the Unicef board had recently approved clean 
     water and education programs that would benefit whole 
     villages and people of all ages.
       Taking a broader look, she said, means that programs can be 
     tailored to national needs and levels of development: basic 
     survival in a country like Chad or children's rights in 
     Argentina or Chile.
       Among its recommendations, the report calls for campaigns 
     to attack vitamin deficiencies and malnutrition, the 
     precursors to disease in many countries, and to ameliorate or 
     end deprivations and social abuses of children that weaken 
     them and ultimately threaten their lives.
       ``In all regions of the world,'' the report said, 
     ``children continue to be malnourished, to be plagued by 
     preventable disease, to be denied even a basic education.''
       Unicef says that about 200 million children worldwide 
     suffer from vitamin A deficiency, which impairs the immune 
     system and can lead to blindness and death. One million to 
     two million children's lives could be saved each year by 
     vitamin supplements, the report says.
       About half of the 13 million children who die each year are 
     victims of three major illnesses: pneumonia, diarrheal 
     disease and measles. While measles is in retreat, the report 
     says, pneumonia, the single largest killer of children, is 
     not. And AIDS is now a threat. About one million children now 
     have the virus that causes AIDS, many in Africa and Asia.
       With the world population growing fastest in the poorest 
     countries, where children are likely to live in the worst 
     conditions, Ms. Bellamy said the reduction in aid was 
     especially unfortunate.
       ``None of us benefit if our partners in development are 
     being hurt, because we are actually all in the same 
     development boat,'' she said.
       Ms. Bellamy, a former Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala 
     and director of the Peace Corps before she joined Unicef in 
     May, said she had the point of interrelationships driven home 
     when she became City Council President in New York in 1978.
       ``Here in New York City--the industrialized world--we had 
     not had a full-scale immunization program for a number of 
     years,'' she said. ``A third of all youngsters in New York 
     City schools and close to a half of poor youngsters were not 
     immunized. So we started a program to get all kids immunized.
       ``There is a direct connection between that investment in 
     aid and health care back here in the United States. If polio 
     breaks out one place in the world it can just come back and 
     spread again. The walls between nations are now very thin 
     curtains.''
     

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