The United Nations Children’s Fund, better known as UNICEF, is an agency of the United Nations (UN) that provides long-range development and humanitarian assistance to children and mothers in developing countries. The UN General Assembly created the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund on December 11, 1946, to provide food and health care to children in countries suffering the devastation of World War II. In 1953, the organization became a permanent part of the UN system, and its name was shortened to the United Nations Children’s Fund. Also that year, UNICEF began its fight against yaws, a disfiguring disease afflicting millions of children.