United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)

Public Attention to the Plight of Children

The public face of UNICEF is the UNICEF National Committee. There are 37 such National Committees in developed countries around the world, each of them an independent, nongovernmental organization (NGO) responsible for not only raising the private donations that account for a third of UNICEF's funding, but also for acting as the charity's voice. The National Committees bring public attention to issues concerning the rights and safety of the world's children, and the effects on children of international issues like poverty, natural and human-made disasters, war, and child-jeopardizing practices like child labor and sex trafficking. National Committees are also responsible for connecting and [Page 708]partnering with appropriate local groups that can further UNICEF's interests—whether doctors and other professionals available to volunteer their labor, school groups that can help with fundraising, or media organizations.

The American National Committee is the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, the oldest such committee, founded in 1947. Headquartered in New York City, the U.S. Fund also has regional offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, and Los Angeles. Charity Navigator, a group that evaluates charities according to efficiency (the ability to put funds to use without waste) and capacity (the ability to use funds, and to grow in response to increased funding), gives the U.S. Fund a 61.55 rating: four stars out of four in both efficiency and capacity. Of the fund's $443 million in 2008 expenses, only 2.8 percent ($12 million) were spent on administration, and another 6.6 percent ($29 million) on fundraising.

Like most large humanitarian organizations, UNICEF focuses both on long-term developmental programs and on emergency disaster relief. Its many programs include a wide variety of goals, from eliminating the death of children by preventable causes (such as disease and malnutrition), to improving the quality of obstetric care, to eliminating school fees. Such fees are required in many countries for families who want to send their children to public school, because taxes and other revenue sources are not sufficient to keep the schools funded; as a result, poor and even middle-class families are less likely to send their daughters to school, paying only for their sons.

UNICEF also places a greater than average emphasis on what it calls its “psychosocial programs,” identifying mental health as a key area of concern during disaster relief operations. Healthcare workers not only tend to physical and emergent health problems, but also strengthen childrens' coping abilities. Programs aimed at creating a mentally and emotionally healthy environment for growing children include counseling and mentor programs, sponsorship of recreational play activities, and post-trauma counseling, as well as the fund's general concerns with education and opposition to child labor and exploitation. UNICEF also regularly coordinates disaster response with the United Nations Disaster Relief Organization (UNDRO), established in 1972.

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