May 28, 2001

Speech of Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak at the Pan African Forum on the Future of Children

    It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to Egypt. It is with a great sense of pride and expectation that I address you today. We are proud to belong to the great continent of Africa and greatly honoured to host this Pan-African Forum for the Future of Africa’s Children.

    Our gathering here is a very important component of the regional initiatives to prepare for the United Nations General Assembly Special session on Children. The special session is held to asses the performance of the international community in implementing the commitments World Leaders made at the first World Summit for Children (ASC). I am confident that, in time, we will look back upon our deliberations here as a key step in the Global Movement for Children. This Forum, the first of its kind, will send a message to the world determination to improve the lives of our children.

    But our commitments must go beyond a message. And I believe they will. We have the capacity to create a Contact for Africa’s Children that will guide leaders, communities and youth in setting goals and monitoring performance in meeting our obligations to children’s rights.

    I recall our optimism when we met at the World Summit for Children in New York in September of 1990. For the first time in history, world leaders made commitments to improve the situation of their children.

    We reviewed and agreed upon a set of child survival and development goals that seemed achievable by the year 2000 for all, or most, countries. At that time, the Convention on the Rights of the Child had only its first signatories.

    At the Summit, we agreed to an Action Plan to achieve Universal ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It seemed an ambitious goal at the time. Since then, the momentum around child rights has made it the most widely recognized of all international treaties.

    The movement to ratify the Convention not only spread across all of Africa, but also paved the way to the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. African’s achievements in this respect surpassed even our own expectations.

    We have all worked hard to keep the process that we made in 1990 to improve the survival and development of our children. Now is the time to evaluate the implementation of these promises. Progress has been made, but this past has also had its disappointments for us all.

    The global pandemic of HIV/AIDS was not expected in 1990. Indeed the leaders of the world did not even include HIV/AIDS prevention in the goals of the World Summit for Children.

    We now know that this global pandemic is sowing fear in all continents of the world. In Africa it is taking a very heavy toll. More than 12 million of our children have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS. The disease is devouring our human and financial resources. The fight against AIDS is an international responsibility and one that must be borne by the global community and not African alone. The recent Abuja Summit on HIV/AIDS has echoed the need for an international response to this challenge.

    Malaria, as well, did not figure in the World Summit for Children disease-reduction goals. We were confident that it was disappearing around the world.

    Instead, we find ourselves today face-to-face with the new drug-resistant forms of the disease that thrive despite widespread use of insecticides.

    When we review the situation of children in Africa, we must have the courage to say that the efforts made, and certainly the results achieved, fell far short of our obligations, let alone our hopes. Although we have seen some advances in some countries, there has been an overall failure in many sectors.

    The record for achieving the World Summit goals is poorer than any other region in the world. The list of problems is certainly frightening: the combination of poverty, HIV/AIDS, armed conflicts, natural disasters, and famines. And yet, when all is said and done, we need to ask ourselves some difficult questions, if we are to make a departure from the past towards a future worthy of our children.

    Why are African children still the most disadvantaged in the world, facing the highest risk of early death and disease? Have we really given priority to “the best interests of the child” when we take decisions? Have we done enough to create an environment fit for our children? What have we allocated adequate financial resources to secure the rights? Have we done enough to eliminate discrimination against the girl-child? Have we done to protect the rights of adolescents? Have we really empowered our children and youth to join in the movement of change for a brighter future? Have we shown good governance and accountability? How about our children with special needs and those in difficult circumstances; are they, as they should be, high on our child care priority list?
    Ladies and Gentlemen,

    Child rights are not compatible with poverty. Poverty underpins almost all challenges to child welfare. Poverty interacts with, and is compounded by many of the main obstacles to the welfare of children, whether exclusion from education, malnutrition, environment degradation or child labour.

    But we know that it is possible with attention to early children for children living in poverty to develop well and become well and become good learners. In fact, we know that investing in these earlier years, yields very large returns. We have much to do if this is to happen. Early childcare services, based in the community, in Malawi for example, have shown good promise. But as elsewhere they are far too small to meet the need. We must find ways to take good examples and spread them widely.

    Child rights are not compatible with war. Without armed conflict, economists tell us Africa would have been 36 % richer by 2000. But these are hollow financial estimates when we think of the human losses. Most of those who have died in the civil strife since 1960 have been civilians. But even death, no matter how tragic, underestimates the loss of hope in the future among children who have witnessed their parents unable to protect either themselves or their children.

    Nothing contrasts so sadly with the optimism we had at the World Summit for children in 1990 than the masses of children we see today used as shields in armed conflicts.

    In response we need to strengthen mechanisms for protecting children in these situations through both legal and practical measures. Over the last fifteen years, Africa has contributed creatively to the human experience of protecting children in situations of armed conflict. This has been accomplished through periods and corridors of tranquility, humanitarian assistance initiatives, and frameworks for community.

    Indeed the OAU initiative on conflict management needs to be broadened to include issues related to the rights of children. Furthermore, the African capacity to extend humanitarian assistance needs to be reviewed and restructured.

    In the face of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, violence, genocide, and war in Africa, children have been forced to fend for themselves. The HIV/AIDS pandemic alone has left orphans, child-headed households, and impoverishment in its wake. It has also caused innumerable deaths in Africa, a quarter of which, unfortunately, are among children under the age of 15.

    The spread of this fatal virus can be attributed largely to lack of proper awareness. Hence, education is the key we hold in our hands to rein in this catastrophe. The traditional role of education needs to be broadened in the sense of imparting more than just knowledge and skills. It must actively participate in strengthening the social fabric by fostering mortality and promoting awareness.

    There is no investment that yields greater returns than the education of our children. Finding ways for all children, especially girls, to attend schools deserves more of our attention. Here in Egypt, we have made significant progress and have continued to set higher targets to be reached in the years to come. The target for 2005 is focused on those communities where children do not attend school.

    We have created partnerships with governments, NGO’s communities and parents in order to promote education of all children, particularly girls.

    This has taken the form of community schools which provide innovative types of education, free of charge to all members of community. Access to quality education must be powerful part of our future efforts for children.

    On a continual scale, the need for education is much greater. An estimated 40 million children in Africa do not attend school. One third drop out before completing primary school. While disheartening, these figures should be our motivation for exerting every effort to change this bitter reality.

    The children of Africa deserve to be in a quality –learning environment, where access to technology and information networks must be a part of the future we are building for our children.

    Today, we must be honest on our appraisal of progress made for children by identifying both the weakness, and the untapped resources. Above all, Africa’s leaders must acknowledge that their key enemies lie within their own borders as does also their most valuable resource, their youth.

    Ladies and gentlemen

    Ten years after the world summit for children we are increasingly aware of our challenges. The starting point for a better future for Africa s is one of facing these realities and taking to heart the lessons we have learned. Your leadership and sustained commitment joining hands with our young people, can make it happen.

    As Africans, we need to make a clear commitment to address these challenges. Mechanisms, such as the African charter on the rights and the welfare of the child, can help us to do this . We must show them that we are aware that we are determined to overcome our weakness. In doing this, we can provide an example to the world. We are highly encouraged by the enthusiasm and energy sweeping our continent nowadays.

    Many meetings and conferences are taking place to address crucial issues and to prepare for the special session, in Morocco, in Kigali, in Bamako and many more. We are confident that this new spirit will usher in a new commitment for our children.

    Distinguished guests:
    The words of representatives of youth should determine our mandate. The representatives of African youth have entrusted me in our meetings yesterday to carry their demands and their dreams wherever I go. I will do my best to ensure that their voices are heard. I will spare no effort to ensure that the global Movement for Children will bring us much closer to their dreams.

    We are gathered here to reaffirm our unconditional political will to provide our children, throughout Africa with the best possible of all futures. This is consistent with our aspirations for a more humane, developed and prosperous Africa as well as the application of the best international norms and practices embodied in the WSC and CRC commitments.

    Together, we can create a dynamic movement for children across Africa. By joining our voices together, we will be heard around the world.

    Let us not leave here before we all declare, in one powerful voice, our solemn commitment to do all in our power to attain these lofty goals. "An Africa fit for children”.

    May God bless you all and guide you in your endeavours