    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book II)]
    [December 21, 1993]
    [Pages 2196-2198]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks Honoring UNICEF Health Heroes
    December 21, 1993

        Thank you. Thank you very much, Jim. Hillary and I are delighted to
    have you and so many of your friends from around America here today for
    the presentation of this report. We especially appreciate the presence
    here--I see Senator Leahy, Senator Sarbanes, and Congressman Obey. I
    don't know if Senator Dole and Congressman Porter are here, but I think
    they were coming. I'm delighted to see, from the administration, Tim
    Wirth from the State Department; Secretary Shalala from HHS; our United
    Nations Ambassador, Madeleine Albright; our AID Administrator, Brian
    Atwood; and the Surgeon General, Dr. Joycelyn Elders. There are many
    other distinguished people here, but most of all I'm glad to see the
    children here. For after all, we're here to celebrate a season filled
    with the joy of children and to remind ourselves of much of the work
    still to be done.
        James Agee once wrote, ``In every child who is born under no matter
    what circumstances, the potentiality of the human race is born again,
    and in him, too, our terrific responsibility toward human life, toward
    the utmost idea of goodness, the horror of error, and of God.'' We are
    here in part to note the outstanding work of the fine man who just
    spoke.
        Jim Grant and UNICEF are among the best

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    friends any child could have. UNICEF was the driving force behind the
    historic world summit for children 3 years ago when leaders of 150
    nations met to define the goals for improving health and welfare of our
    children by the year 2000. Jim and UNICEF continue to see that all the
    rest of us do our part to make progress toward those goals.
        Today, with the annual State of the World's Children Report, UNICEF
    lays down another marker for the rest of us. The U.S. Agency for
    International Development also releases its own report on child
    survival. And these impressive reports both mark the progress that has
    been made as well as outlining what still we must do. They document, for
    example, that over the past decade the international community has
    reduced the instances of some of the world's worst childhood diseases:
    measles, polio, and neo-natal tetanus, by over half. Yet we have still
    so much to do. Around the world, children suffer more than anyone else
    from poverty, malnutrition, disease, environmental decay, and even armed
    conflict. Today and every day in villages and neighborhoods around the
    globe, 30,000 children will die from malnutrition and preventable
    disease. As Jim has noted, behind each of these statistics there's a
    face, a family, a set of hopes and dreams, and a future that now will
    never be.
        And while the plight of children abroad is especially acute, we must
    never forget that poverty, hunger, and disease are not strangers to our
    children here in the United States. One of every five of our children
    lives in poverty. By the time they're 15 years old, nearly one-third of
    our children in inner cities will have known someone who has died
    violently. One of my highest goals is to see that the next generation of
    our children grows up with more health, more security, more safety, and
    more hope than those of this generation. That's one of the reasons why
    we worked so hard for the Family and Medical Leave Act, for the new
    crime bill, for the Brady bill, and perhaps most importantly, for
    universal health care coverage for all of our people.
        The First Lady and Secretary Shalala and others are working on a
    health care reform plan that, when enacted, will provide complete
    preventive care and health security for over 8 million American children
    that today are uninsured. We're working to boost the immunization rate
    of our 2-year-olds to 90 percent; striving to ensure adequate nutrition
    for all of our children, including full funding for the women, infants
    and children's feeding program; fighting the plague of violence against
    our children; and committed also to improving the lives of children in
    other lands, not out of simple charity but also out of prudence, because
    investing in the children of the world can be the most cost-effective
    way not only to relieve suffering but to advance economies, to promote
    self-sufficiency, to promote democracy, and to avert future conflicts.
        There have been times when the fight for the world's children seemed
    to be a losing one. But the children's summit and related events have
    transformed that frustration into hope. Our own Nation can take pride in
    decades of our leadership, with bipartisan support here at home on
    behalf of worldwide efforts to improve children's health.
        The continuing leadership of this Nation is revealed in the work of
    the six health heroes we will honor here today and countless others like
    them. Building on their contributions and concentrating on the most
    cost-effective way of helping children, we're making great strides in
    areas like immunization and child nutrition. We're determined to build
    on this progress.
        Under the direction of AID Director Brian Atwood, we proposed an
    overhaul of our foreign assistance programs to reflect new times and new
    priorities. At the heart of this is a vision for sustainable development
    centered on human development, a vision that will help us to make
    progress in child health, population, and environmental protection, a
    cause the Vice President has done so much to advance. Working with
    UNICEF and other governmental and nongovernmental organizations, we want
    to make those goals at the children's summit come true. That's the best
    Christmas present we could give to the world.
        So today I call on Americans in private and public life to join with
    leaders in developing nations to help ensure that we do make tangible
    progress, especially in three key areas. First, by the year 2000, we
    ought to set our sights on getting 90 percent of the world's children
    vaccinated for measles and on virtually eradicating polio, as surely as
    the world eradicated smallpox decades ago. Second, we should strive to
    give at least 80 percent of the world's children access to lifesaving
    treatment for the world's two biggest childhood killers, diarrhea and
    pneumonia.

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    Third, on nutrition, the world can make enormous improvements through
    simple steps such as eliminating Vitamin A deficiency, which can be
    deadly, and by promoting more breast feeding for infants.
        These are simple low-cost strategies. They don't require space-age
    technology. They rely on basic medicines, inexpensive vaccines,
    drinkable water, access to family planning, and expanded educational
    opportunities, especially for women and girls. And we can afford to do
    our part in this effort because the financial burden will be shared
    among many nations.
        If we let the world's children suffer, we know that in time we'll
    reap a bitter harvest of despair and desperation and violence. We know
    that when children grow up healthy and nurtured, they're more likely to
    do better by their own children, they're more likely to become citizens
    and contributors, more likely to add to the global marketplace. This is
    how free societies and open markets evolve, how global progress happens,
    how future friends of the United States and these children will be
    created.
        We still call this, I think instructively, the post-cold-war era.
    The problem with that designation is it tells us where we've been but
    not where we're going. We have to chart a new path, channeling the
    remarkable forces at work in this era with a bold vision of what might
    be. Let us today commit that our children and the world's children will
    figure large in that vision, that the post-cold-war era will instead be
    the world's era of peace and prosperity and humanity in which our minds
    and hearts work together to give all children a better life.
        Now I'd like to ask our six health heroes to step forward and to be
    recognized for the outstanding work they've done. First, Dr. Gretchen
    Berggren, being recognized for her lifelong commitment to the health of
    the world's children as a medical missionary and an innovator in
    community-based nutrition and primary health care; next, Dr. William
    Foege, for his long commitment to the health of the world's children
    through his global leadership on immunization goals and the eradication
    of smallpox; Dr. Norbert Hirschorn, for his distinguished career in
    public health and his leadership in demonstrating the value of oral
    rehydration therapy to change children's lives all around the world; Dr.
    Donald Hopkins, for his leadership in the global effort to eradicate
    Guinea worm and other diseases and to assure safe water and better
    sanitation to support children's health around the world; Patrice
    Jeliffe, for her lifetime commitment to the world's children as a public
    health expert, promoting breast feeding and appropriate weaning foods
    and practices in the developing world; Dr. Carl E. Taylor, for his
    sustained work around the world, from India to Beijing, which has
    demonstrated key linkages among nutrition, family size, and other
    efforts on child survival.
        Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 2:28 p.m. in the East Room at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to Jim Grant, American Executive
    Director, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).