Oral Statement by Alex Vazquez, as representative of IFFD, at the Annual Session of the Executive Board of UNICEF 2024, on the importance of parenting support as an accelerator in Early Childhood Development and the 2030 Agenda.
Full text can be found at Unicef Executive Board Website
Mr. President,
The International Federation for Family Development operates in 68 countries and focuses on skill-building programs for parents, as the first layer of protection of children. I take this opportunity to commend the UNICEF Annual Report, the midterm review of the Strategic Plan, and the UNICEF Vision for Early Childhood Development.
Following-up on these documents and despite ongoing crises and conflicts, we stand with UNICEF in its commitment to improving children’s lives. In this regard, we want to acknowledge some relevant achievements in collaboration with the Civil Society, for instance,
The midterm-review reference to the importance of integrating multi-sectoral expertise to improve community-based interventions, family-friendly policies, parenting support, and care agenda.
The Fund’s expansion on initiatives like Five Million Futures and others to build parental capacities, reaching 11 million parents and benefiting 34 million children in 50 countries.
The attention given to the private sector through the Global Innovation Board impacting 5,000 businesses in 37 countries to adopt family-friendly workplace policies.
UNICEF’s Vision for ECD now explicitly includes Early Childhood Development as a key outcome, with a strong emphasis on parenting.
These positive results align with my Federation’s best efforts to include a parenting perspective in the recently observed 30th Anniversary of the International Year of the Family and the Civil Society Declaration presented to develop social policies from a family-oriented perspective. The Declaration has been signed by 38 Organizations active in 132 countries, it has involved 28 raise-awareness events and it is enriched by the input of 53 experts, including UNICEF technical experts.
Finally, with our focus on family-friendly policies and parenting support, we are committed to work together with UNICEF to accelerate progress. In this regard we kindly seek clarification on,
What are the plans to enhance the visibility of ECD and Parenting? ,
Are there other acceleration plans to complement parenting support?,
How financial and human resources are secured to keep ECD a top priority in the years ahead?
We affirm our support to UNICEF in achieving its goals for the well-being of children.
Thank you Mr. President
