UNICEF: Almost Halfway to Millennium Goals ... Or Not

While hundreds of people hang out in Bali and twiddle their sweaty thumbs over climate change at the instigation of the UN ... oh! the carbon footprint! ... it seems a good time to take a look at another hugely expensive waste of time and money, UNICEF's "State of the World's Children 2007" report.

First, a bit of history ...

UNICEF was initially established in 1946 as the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund ... emphasis on "emergency" ... to provide the necessities of life to the children left without after World War ll.

The post-war world took it upon itself to feed, house, clothe and provide medical care to European children, and UNICEF was the agency created to meet all these needs.

To say that the mandate has changed is an understatement underlined by the fact that even the acronym no longer carries the same meaning; the "E" is silent and the organization is simply the "United Nations Children's Fund".

UNICEF is now a generator of reports, a collector of stats, a passer of bucks, an employer of thousands, a generator of buzz phrases, a massive PR machine and an excuse for not taking direct action.

Take the "Progress for Children" report the BBC writes about here, for example, that leads with the UNICEF admonishment that the "World 'must do more' for children".

Much like the UN's urgent pleadings for change to ward off global climate change or Ban Ki Moon's reaction on his first visit to Darfur ... he was "shocked" ... the apparent revelation from an organization that sucks up as many resources as UNICEF that children in the world are in deep doodoo is not only not comforting, but suspiciously disingenuous.

Almost half way through the time allowed by the UN's Millennium Development Goals and UNICEF is pulling out stats claiming "remarkable progress" in child mortality rates since 1960. Wouldn't medical advances over almost 50 years take up an awful lot of the credit, rather than anything UNICEF might have actually done?