name	United Nations Children's Fund صندوق الأمم المتحدة للطفولة 联合国儿童基金会 Fonds des Nations unies pour l'enfance Детский фонд Организации Объединённых Наций Fondo de Naciones Unidas para la Infancia
image size	250px
type	Fund
acronyms	UNICEF
head	Anthony Lake
status	Active
established	December 1946
headquarters	New York, USA
website	UNICEF official site
parent	ECOSOC
commons	United Nations
is called now	unicef }}

United Nations Children's Fund (or UNICEF; ) was created by the United Nations General Assembly on December 11, 1946, to provide emergency food and healthcare to children in countries that had been devastated by World War II. In 1953, UNICEF became a permanent part of the United Nations System and its name was shortened from the original United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund but it has continued to be known by the popular acronym based on this old name. Headquartered in New York City, UNICEF provides long-term humanitarian and developmental assistance to children and mothers in developing countries. It is one of the members of the United Nations Development Group and its Executive Committee.

UNICEF relies on contributions from governments and private donors and UNICEF's total income for 2006 was $2,781,000,000. Governments contribute two thirds of the organization's resources; private groups and some 6 million individuals contribute the rest through the National Committees. UNICEF's programs emphasize developing community-level services to promote the health and well-being of children. UNICEF was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965 and the Prince of Asturias Award of Concord in 2006.

Most of UNICEF's work is in the field, with staff in over 190 countries and territories. More than 200 country offices carry out UNICEF's mission through a program developed with host governments. Seven regional offices provide technical assistance to country offices as needed.

Overall management and administration of the organization takes place at its headquarters in New York. UNICEF's Supply Division is based in Copenhagen and serves as the primary point of distribution for such essential items as vaccines, antiretroviral medicines for children and mothers with HIV, nutritional supplements, emergency shelters, educational supplies, among others. A 36-member Executive Board establishes policies, approves programs and oversees administrative and financial plans. The Executive Board is made up of government representatives who are elected by the United Nations Economic and Social Council, usually for three-year terms.

Following the reaching of term limits by Executive Director of UNICEF Carol Bellamy, former United States Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman became executive director of the organization in May 2005 with an agenda to increase the organization's focus on the Millennium Development Goals. She was succeeded in May 2010 by Anthony Lake.

UNICEF is an inter-governmental organization and thus is accountable to governments. UNICEF’s salary and benefits package is based on the United Nations Common System.

UNICEF National Committees

There are National Committees in 36 industrialized countries worldwide, each established as an independent local non-governmental organization. The National Committees raise funds from the private sector.

UNICEF is funded exclusively by voluntary contributions, and the National Committee collectively raise around one-third of UNICEF's annual income. This comes through contributions from corporations, civil society organizations and more than 6 million individual donors worldwide. They also rally many different partners – including the media, national and local government officials, NGOs, specialists such as doctors and lawyers, corporations, schools, young people and the general public – on issues related to children’s rights.

(see List of UNICEF National Committees)

Promotion and fundraising

In the United States, Canada and some other countries, UNICEF is known for its "Trick-Or-Treat for UNICEF" program in which children collect money for UNICEF from the houses they trick-or-treat on Halloween night, sometimes instead of candy. UNICEF is present in 190 countries and territories around the world. UNICEF designated 1979 as the "Year of the Child", and many celebrities including David Gordon, David Essex, Alun Davies and Cat Stevens gave a performance at a benefit concert celebrating the ''Year of the Child Concert'' in December 1979. Many people in developed countries first hear about UNICEF's work through the activities of 36 National Committees for UNICEF. These non-governmental organizations (NGO) are primarily responsible for fundraising, selling UNICEF greeting cards and products, creating private and public partnerships, advocating for children’s rights, and providing other invaluable support. The U.S. Fund for UNICEF is the oldest of the National Committees, founded in 1947. New Zealand appointed, in 2005, 18-year-old Hayley Westenra, a talented, world famous opera / pop singer as their Ambassador to UNICEF, in an effort to enlist the youth of the world in supporting UNICEF. Westenra has made several trips to visit underprivileged children in third world countries on behalf of UNICEF, in an effort to publicize their plight, and has engaged in fund-raising activities in support of the UNICEF mission, as well.

In 2009, the British retailer Tesco used “Change for Good” as advertising, which is trade marked by Unicef for charity usage but is not trademarked for commercial or retail use. This prompted the agency to say, "it is the first time in Unicef’s history that a commercial entity has purposely set out to capitalise on one of our campaigns and subsequently damage an income stream which several of our programmes for children are dependent on”. They went on to call on the public “who have children’s welfare at heart, to consider carefully who they support when making consumer choices”.

Sponsorship

On 7 September 2006, an agreement between UNICEF and the Spanish association football club FC Barcelona was reached whereby the club would donate 1.5 million euros per year to the organization for five years. As part of the agreement, FC Barcelona will wear the UNICEF logo on the front of their shirts, which will be the first time a football club sponsored an organization rather than the other way around. It is also the first time in FC Barcelona's history that they have had another organization's name across the front of their shirts.

In January 2007, UNICEF struck a partnership with Canada's national tent pegging team. The team was officially re-flagged as "UNICEF Team Canada", its riders wear UNICEF's logo in competition, and team members promote and raise funds for UNICEF's campaign against childhood HIV-AIDS. When the team became the 2008 tent pegging world champions, UNICEF's flag was raised alongside the Canadian flag at the games, the first time in the history of international Grand Prix equestrian competition that a non-state flag has flown over the medal podium.

The Swedish club Hammarby IF followed the Spanish and Canadian lead on 14 April 2007, also raising funds for UNICEF and displaying the UNICEF name on their sportswear. The Danish soccer club Brondby IF will do likewise from the summer of 2008.

Race driver Jacques Villeneuve has occasionally placed the UNICEF logo on the #27 Bill Davis Racing pickup truck in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.

In Botswana, UNICEF has funded the development of new state-of-the-art HIV/AIDS education for every schoolchild in Botswana from nonprofit organization TeachAIDS.

UNICEF recently announced a landmark partnership with Scottish club Rangers F.C. UNICEF will partner the Rangers Charity Foundation and have pledged to raise £300,000 by 2011.

Trick-or-Treat UNICEF box

Since 1950 when a group of children in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, donated $17 they received on Halloween to help post-World War II victims, the Trick-or-Treat UNICEF box has become a tradition in North America during the haunting season. These small orange boxes are handed to children at schools and at various locations (such as Hallmark Gold Crown Stores) prior to 31 October. To date, the box has collected approximately $91 million (CAD) in Canada and over $132 million (USD) in the USA.

Corporate Partnership

To raise money to support its Education and Literacy Programmes, UNICEF works together with companies all over the world – encompassing international as well as small- and medium-sized businesses. Since 2005, the organization is being supported by Montblanc, working closely together to help the world’s children getting better access to education.

UNICEF Locations

The UNICEF World Warehouse

The UNICEF World Warehouse is a 25,000m² large warehouse facility in Denmark, which hosts UNICEF deliverable goods as well as co-hosts emergency goods for United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). In addition to the goods, the facility also houses the UNICEF Supply Division which manages strategic transport hubs in Dubai, Panama and Shanghai.

The UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre

UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre in Florence, Italy, was established in 1988 to strengthen the research capability of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and to support its advocacy for children worldwide.

The Centre, formally known as the International Child Development Centre, has as its prime objectives to improve international understanding of the issues relating to children's rights, to promote economic policies that advance the cause of children, and to help facilitate the full implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in industrialized and developing countries.

The programme for 2006–2008 was approved by UNICEF Executive Board in September 2005. It reaffirms the Centre's academic freedom and the focus of IRC's research on knowledge gaps, emerging questions and sensitive issues which are relevant to the realization of children's rights, in developing and industrialized countries. It capitalizes on IRC's role as an interface between UNICEF field experience, international experts, research networks and policy makers and is designed to strengthen the Centre's institutional collaboration with regional academic and policy institutions, pursuing the following four goals:

Generation and communication of strategic and influential knowledge on issues affecting children and the realization of their rights;

Knowledge exchange and brokering;

Support to UNICEF's advocacy, policy and programme development in support of the Millennium Agenda

Securing and strengthening the Centre's institutional and financial basis.

Three interrelated strategies will guide the achievement of these goals:

Evidence-based analysis drawing on quantitative and qualitative information, the application of appropriate methodologies, and the development of recommendations to assess and inform advocacy and policy action.

Enhanced partnerships with research and policy institutions and development actors, globally and at regional level, in developing and industrialized countries.

Communication and leveraging of research findings and recommendations to support policy development and advocacy initiatives through strategic dissemination of studies and contribution to relevant events and fora.

Criticism

UNICEF has been criticized at times for its focus or for specific policies. In 2004, the editorial in the Lancet argued that UNICEF's rights-based approach to child welfare, based upon the Convention on the Rights of the Child, whilst in accordance with international development policy, leads to a lower emphasis on child survival and mortality.

The Catholic Church has also been critical of UNICEF, with the Vatican at times withdrawing its donations, because of reports by the American Life League and others that UNICEF has used some of those funds to finance sterilizations and abortions. Catholics have also accused UNICEF of supporting abortion through their endorsement of "good quality abortion services" at the International Conference on Better Health for Women and Children in Kenya in 1987.

UNICEF has also been criticized for its financial endorsement of China's allegedly coercive one-child policy through the UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) by increasing donations from $2 million to $5 million in 1993.

A further example is the emotive issue of intercountry adoptions from Guatemala. The country has ratified the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption of 29 May 1993 with effect from 1 January 2008. UNICEF has been criticised by some interested parties for failing to support adoptions that are underway before the deadline.

Three top Hollywood stars Liam Neeson, Vanessa Redgrave and Roger Moore all withdrew their high-profile support of the children's charity in July 2011, following the dismissal of UNICEF Ireland's Executive Director, over the publicity surrounding her relationship with a deceased radio star.

See also

Afghan New Beginnings Programme

Alliance for Healthy Cities

Awaaz do - India

Facts for Life

Integrated Management of Childhood Illness

List of UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors

Maurice Pate, first executive director of UNICEF

Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, statistical monitoring program of UNICEF

Music for UNICEF Concert

Street children

Unite for Children, Unite Against AIDS

Voices of Youth

References and notes

External links

UNICEF

UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre

United Nations Rule of Law: The United Nations Children's Fund, on the rule of law work conducted by the United Nations Children Fund.

Pune Street Children Project by Identity Foundation- Global volunteering initiative on Nabuur.com

Intelligent Giving profile of UNICEF UK

Unicef fund raising at Official FC Barcelona UK Penya

Unicef – Breastfeeding Support Forum

UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Femi Kuti speaks out against the suffering of Zimbabwean children

UNICEF Child protection from violence, exploitation and abuse: Child labour

UN Practitioner's Portal on HRBA Programming Resources on rights of the child, UN centralised webportal on the Human Rights-Based Approach to Development Programming.

Social Media

UNICEF's YouTube channel

UNICEF's Facebook Page

UNICEF's Twitter Page

UNICEF's Tumblr Page

UNICEF's Scribd Page

Video clips

UNICEF's YouTube channel

UNICEF's Daily Motion channel

UNICEF's Blip.TV channel

Sotna Children's TV show produced by UNICEF Egypt

* Category:Child-related organizations Category:Children's charities Category:International charities Category:Recipients of the Indira Gandhi Peace Prize Category:Nobel Peace Prize laureates Category:Organizations awarded Nobel Prizes Category:United Nations Development Group Category:Organizations established by the United Nations Category:Organizations established in 1946 Category:Organizations based in New York City

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Name	Thomas Lubanga Dyilo
Birth date	December 29, 1960
Birth place	Djiba, Ituri Province, DRC
Nationality	Democratic Republic of the Congo
Ethnicity	Hema-Gegere
Known for	Indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes
Footnotes	}}

Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (born 29 December 1960) is a former rebel leader from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). He founded and led the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) and was a key player in the Ituri conflict. Rebels under his command have been accused of massive human rights violations, including ethnic massacres, murder, torture, rape, mutilation, and forcibly conscripting child soldiers.

On 17 March 2006, Lubanga became the first person ever arrested under a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court. His trial, for the war crime of "conscripting and enlisting children under the age of fifteen years and using them to participate actively in hostilities", began on 26 January 2009.

Early life and family

Lubanga was born on 29 December 1960 in Djiba in the Ituri Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He is of the Hema-Gegere ethnic group. He studied at the University of Kisangani and has a degree in psychology. He is married and has seven children.

Ituri conflict

During the Second Congo War, Lubanga was a military commander and "minister of defence" in the pro-Uganda Congolese Rally for Democracy-Liberation Movement (RCD-ML). In July 2001, he founded another rebel group, the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC). In early 2002, Lubanga was sidelined from the military control of the RCD-ML and he split from the group. In September 2002, he became President of the UPC and founded its military wing, the Patriotic Force for the Liberation of the Congo (FPLC).

Under Lubanga's leadership, the largely Hema UPC became one of the main actors in the Ituri conflict between the Hema and Lendu ethnic groups. It seized control of Bunia, capital of the gold-rich Ituri region, in 2002, and demanded that the Congolese government recognise Ituri as an autonomous province. Lubanga was arrested on 13 June 2002 while on a mission to Kinshasa but he was released ten weeks later in exchange for a kidnapped government minister.

Human Rights Watch have accused the UPC, under Lubanga's command, of "ethnic massacres, murder, torture, rape and mutilation, as well as the recruitment of child soldiers". Between November 2002 and June 2003, the UPC allegedly killed 800 civilians on the basis of their ethnicity in the gold mining region of Mongbwalu. Between 18 February and 3 March 2003, the UPC are reported to have destroyed 26 villages in one area, killing at least 350 people and forcing 60,000 to flee their homes. Human rights organisations claim that at one point Lubanga had 3,000 child soldiers between the ages of 8 and 15. He reportedly ordered every family in the area under his control to help the war effort by donating something: money, a cow, or a child to join his militia.

The UPC was forced out of Bunia by the Ugandan army in March 2003. Lubanga later moved to Kinshasa and registered the UPC as a political party, but he was arrested on 19 March 2005 in connection with the killing of nine Bangladeshi United Nations peacekeepers in Ituri on 25 February 2005. He was initially detained in one of Kinshasa's most luxurious hotels but after a few months he was transferred to Kinshasa's central jail.

Trial

In March 2004, the Congolese government authorised the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate and prosecute "crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court allegedly committed anywhere in the territory of the DRC since the entry into force of the Rome Statute, on 1 July 2002." On 10 February 2006, a Pre-Trial Chamber of the ICC found that there were reasonable grounds to believe that Lubanga bore individual criminal responsibility for the war crime of "conscripting and enlisting children under the age of fifteen years and using them to participate actively in hostilities", and issued a sealed warrant for his arrest.

On 17 March 2006, Lubanga became the first person ever arrested under an ICC arrest warrant, when the Congolese authorities arrested him and transferred him into ICC custody. He was flown to the Hague, where he has been held in the ICC detention centre since 17 March 2006. As of January 2009, he is one of four people being detained by the ICC, including two rebels who fought against Lubanga in the Ituri conflict: Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui. His trial opened on 26 January 2009.

Controversies

Lubanga's trial, the ICC's first, has aroused several controversies: The trial was halted on 13 June 2008 when the court ruled that the Prosecutor's refusal to disclose potentially exculpatory evidence had breached Lubanga's right to a fair trial. The Prosecutor had obtained the evidence from the United Nations and other sources on the condition of confidentiality, but the judges ruled that the Prosecutor had incorrectly applied the relevant provision of the Rome Statute and, as a consequence, "the trial process has been ruptured to such a degree that it is now impossible to piece together the constituent elements of a fair trial". On 2 July 2008, the court ordered Lubanga's release, on the grounds that "a fair trial of the accused is impossible, and the entire justification for his detention has been removed", but an Appeal Chamber agreed to keep him in custody while the Prosecutor appealed. By 18 November 2008, the Prosecutor had agreed to make all the confidential information available to the court, so the Trial Chamber reversed its decision and ordered that the trial could go ahead. The Prosecutor was widely criticised for his actions, but the court was also praised for its "determination to ensure fairness to the defence".

Human rights groups have expressed their concern about the narrow scope of the charges against Lubanga, and urged the Prosecutor to add more crimes to the indictment. Several organisations wrote to the Prosecutor in 2006 arguing that "the failure to include additional charges in the case against Mr. Lubanga could undercut the credibility of the ICC in the DRC. Moreover, the narrow scope of the current charges may result in severely limiting victims’ participation in the first proceedings before the ICC. This could negatively impact on the right of victims to reparations."

Lubanga's lawyer has complained that the defence team was given a smaller budget than the Prosecutor, that evidence and witness statements have been slow to arrive, and that many documents are so heavily redacted that they are impossible to read.

References and notes

External links

The Prosecutor v. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo — public court records relating to the ICC trial

— special edition focusing on the Lubanga trial

Thomas Lubanga Dyilo — the Hague Justice Portal

Thomas Lubanga — Trial Watch

www.lubangatrial.org — daily coverage of the trial and legal analysis

2003 interview with Thomas Lubanga — IRIN

Report on the opening day of Thomas Lubanga's trial - Radio France International

Category:1960 births Category:Living people Category:People from Ituri Province Category:People detained by the International Criminal Court Category:Democratic Republic of the Congo prisoners and detainees Category:Democratic Republic of the Congo people imprisoned abroad Category:People indicted for war crimes Category:Participants in the Ituri conflict

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