World Summit for Children

There were nine health goals established.

1. Polio: global eradication by 2000
2. Neonatal tetanus: elimination by 1995
3. Deaths due to diarrhoea: 50 percent reduction
4. Vitamin A deficiency: virtual elimination by the year 2000
5. Iodine deficiency disorders (IDD): virtual elimination
6. Elimination of guinea-worm disease (Dracunculiasis) by 2000
7. Measles: reduction by 95 percent in measles deaths and 90 percent of measles cases by 1995
8. Anemia: reduction of iron deficiency Anemia in women by one-third
9. Routine immunization: maintenance of a high level of immunization coverage

Street child in Bangladesh

1. Infant and under-5 mortality (U5MR): reduction by one third in infant mortality and U5MR
2. Household food security: dissemination of knowledge and supporting services to increase food production
3. Acute respiratory infections (Influenza-like illness): reduction of ARI deaths by one third in children under five

1. Childbirth care: access by all pregnant women to prenatal care
2. Breastfeeding: empowerment of all women to breastfeed their children exclusively for four to six months and to continue breastfeeding, with complementary food, well into the second year of life
3. Childbirth care: access by all pregnant women to referral facilities for high-risk pregnancies and obstetric emergencies
4. Special attention to the health and nutrition of the female child and to pregnant and lactating women
5. Maternal mortality: reduction of the rate by half
6. Low birth-weight: reduction of the rate of low birth-weight to less than 10 percent

A girl during the Nigerian Civil War of the late 1960s. Pictures of the famine caused by Nigerian blockade garnered sympathy for the Biafrans worldwide.

1. Malnutrition: reduction of severe and moderate malnutrition among under-five children by half
2. Water: universal access to safe drinking water

1. Family planning: access by all couples to information and services to prevent pregnancies that are too early, too closely spaced, too late, or too numerous
2. Knowledge skills and values required for better living: increased acquisition by individuals and families of knowledge, skills and values for better living
3. Universal access to basic education: achievement of primary education by at least 80% of primary school-age children
4. Universal access to education with an emphasis on primary education for girls and literacy training for women
5. Early childhood development (ECD): expansion of ECD activities, including appropriate low-cost family and community-based interventions

1. Improve protection of children in extremely difficult circumstances
2. Growth monitoring: growth promotion and regular growth monitoring among children to be institutionalized in all countries by the end of the 1990s

The World Declaration of the Survival, Protection, and Development of Children is subdivided into five categories: The Challenge, The Opportunity, The Task, The Commitment, and The Next Step.

• The Challenge: To help countless children around the world who are exposed to dangers that hamper their growth and development. In particular those that are victims of poverty, malnutrition, war, and disease.
• The Opportunity: Declares that the fulfillment of the Summit goals will be an international co-operation, and leaders worldwide must implement the obligations agreed upon to on the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Convention on the Rights of the Child was signed in 1989; it was the first international treaty to guarantee civil and political rights as well as economic, social, and cultural rights. The United States and South Sudan are the only countries who have not ratified the Convention.
• The Task and The Commitment: Both of these serve to further explain the specific goals of the Summit.
  • Improve Children's Health
  • Improve Prenatal Health
  • To strengthen the role and status of women
  • To provide educational opportunities
  • To ameliorate the lives of homeless, refugee, disabled, and abused children
  • To protect children from the dangers of war
  • To work for a global attack on poverty
• The Next Step: The adoption of The Plan of Action to specify how the World Declaration on the Survival, Protection, and Development of Children will be realized.

The Plan of Action is a framework for more specific national and international undertakings. It addresses every goal individually to ensure the implementation of the Declaration of the World Summit for Children. It also concentrates on the follow-up and monitoring of the progression towards accomplishing each goal. The primary responsibility for the implementation of all goals was given to National Governments. Each country agreed to develop strategies through National Programs of Action to make sure these 27 global goals could become national realities. A total of 155 countries developed National Programs of Action.

• Polio: global eradication by 2000
• Neonatal tetanus: elimination by 1995
• Deaths due to diarrhea: 50 percent reduction
• Vitamin A deficiency: virtual elimination by the year 2000
• Iodine deficiency disorders (IDD): virtual elimination
• Elimination of guinea-worm disease(Dracunculiasis) by 2000

• Infant and under-5 mortality: reduction by one third in infant mortality and Under-5 mortality
• Measles: reduction by 95 percent in measles deaths and 90 percent of measles cases by 1995 as a major step to global eradication
• Malnutrition: reduction of severe and moderate malnutrition among under-five children by half
• Breastfeeding: empowerment of all women to breastfeed their children exclusively for four to six months and to continue breastfeeding, with complementary food, well into the second year of life
• Low birth-weight: reduction of the rate of low birth-weight to less than 10%
• Family planning: access by all couples to information and services to prevent pregnancies that are too early, too closely spaced, too late or too numerous
• Childbirth care: access by all pregnant women to prenatal care
• Water: universal access to safe drinking water
• Universal access to basic education: achievement of primary education by at least 80% of primary school-age children
• Universal access to education with an emphasis on primary education for girls and literacy training for women
• Early childhood development (ECD): expansion of ECD activities, including appropriate low-cost family and community-based interventions
• Improve protection of children in extremely difficult circumstances

• Routine immunization: maintenance of a high level of immunization coverage
• Maternal mortality: reduction of the rate by half
• Anemia: reduction of iron deficiency Anemia in women by one-third

• There was limited or inconclusive data on the remaining 6 goals

"We the Children" places the blame to meet goals on financial barriers. Critics note that in many United Nations conferences, goals are ever set but never met, and that commitments on paper are rarely translated into actions. The Canadian Medical Association Journal attributes the lack of progress to the fact that documents emerging from UN conferences are policy documents rather than legal instruments or binding treaties, but it also remarks that the Special Session on Children will set the direction for international policy with respect to children for the next decade.