PNA/Xinhua) -- Findings of a UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) study published in two reports launched here on Tuesday revealed that replacing conventional methods of aid distribution with efforts targeting the hardest places to reach and the poorest communities will help developing countries reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) involving children.
"The results of our study we believe will make a big difference in what UNICEF will do and a still bigger difference in the lives of the children that we serve," Anthony Lake, executive director of UNICEF, said at a press conference here. "What we've found can change how they will live."
"Our findings challenge the traditional thinking that focusing on the poorest and most disadvantaged children is cost-effective," Lake said. "An equity-focused strategy will yield not only a moral victory -- right in principle -- but an even more exciting one: right in practice."
Lake joined Carolyn Miles, executive vice president and chief operating officer of non-profit group Save the Children, to launch UNICEF's flagship reports, "Narrowing the Gaps to Meet the Goals" and "Progress for Children: Achieving the MDGs with Equity," which explain UNICEF's support for this equity-based approach to development.
The MDGs are a set of eight international development goals, several of them involving children, that are due to be completed by 2015. Lake said that his team at UNICEF had become "alarmed" by the fact that even as progress is made in some countries toward the MDGs, the conditions of the poorest of the poor in these countries are staying the same or getting worse.
"Poor children in developing countries are two to three times more likely to be underweight, less likely to attend school and more likely to die than children in the richest quintile, and this is just wrong," said Lake.
The UNICEF study involved intensive examination of development results in a variety of countries and concluded that the equity approach is more cost-effective and helps accelerate progress toward the MDGs more than traditional methods.
Results of the study showed that an investment of one million U. S. dollars in MDG 4, which is the goal that requires reducing the deaths of children under age five, prevented 60 percent more deaths when it was directed toward marginalized populations than when it was directed using traditional methods.
Lake said that results like this prove the equity approach is " not only right in principle, it is right in practice as well. It doesn't suggest change, we believe, it compels it."
Miles said that her organization's own report titled "A Fair Chance at Life: Why Equity Matters for Children" corroborates the conclusion of the UNICEF reports about focusing on the most marginalized populations. Save the Children has focused on reaching MDG 4 through equitable measures.
"Reaching all members of society regardless of wealth, status or gender is very doable when equity is seen as important," she said. "And our research shows that priority on the poorest is one of the surest ways to make progress towards MDG 4."
UNICEF is on the ground in more than 150 countries and territories to help children survive and thrive, from early childhood through adolescence. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. (PNA/Xinhua)
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