Lashley lobbies for relief for small states

UNICEF Youth Advocate for the Eastern Caribbean, Ashley Lashley is calling for debt relief for developing countries hit by the COVID-19 pandemic to preserve social spending and children’s rights.

While delivering the featured address at the UNICEF and the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children Voluntary National Review (VNR) Labs organized at the 2021 High-Level Political Forum (HLPF), Lashley declared that there are serious economic and financial and social-economic imbalances that have undermined the health of children worldwide.

She said debt relief for developing countries would lead to an improvement in child healthcare, and countries would be better positioned to purchase vaccines and additional ventilators and be able to strengthen their COVID-19 pandemic response efforts.

“To this end, I am also pleading for the protection of budgets to help countries recover from the pandemic and get back on track to meet the 2030 agenda. If developing countries do not get adequate funding, how can they sustain serious health and education programmes for their nations’ children?” Lashley said.

The youth advocate also made a call for governments to invest in policies that place the welfare of children and young people at the forefront of their agenda, stressing that small island developing states must strengthen critical social spending,

She also made the point that governments must be better prepared for future pandemics and epidemics and strengthen their social protection safety nets that focus on children and persons living with disabilities.

Lashley said: “It is crucial that children and young people be included in the governance and participatory processes that give us the right to determine our own destiny. We must be given the opportunity to sit on boards and make meaningful decisions that affect our lives. You must take our views into consideration when developing your policies that you implement, today, which will have a lasting effect on the lives of our children for tomorrow.”

She also expressed the view that there are too many poor countries where the health of people, including vulnerable children, remain at risk, and cautioned that if these issues are left unchecked, they would incur the risk of another global pandemic of mammoth proportions.

According to UNICEF, during the last year, the world has experienced unprecedented challenges from COVID-19 that have the potential to reverse global gains towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It said children’s rights to protection, health, good nutrition and education have been compromised, diminishing their life chances and ability to realize their potential. COVID-19 has also exposed and exacerbated existing inequalities and fragilities, putting enormous pressures on national systems.

The VNR Lab will be an opportunity to hear how governments have made their VNR process child-sensitive, showing how they have tried to ensure children were prioritized in the national responses to the COVID-19 pandemic; the challenges they have faced; and how they plan to finance, preserve and enhance services for children in the immediate recovery phase and beyond.

UNICEF’s Executive Director Henrietta Fore called on the global community to join forces to identify and deploy additional and domestic financing options, including innovative approaches.

She also indicated that countries should direct financing towards an inclusive recovery that protects children, especially the poorest and most marginalized, and helps countries become better prepared and more resilient.

“The evidence is clear that investing in children is a benefit to not only the children but to society itself and to global economic growth and development,” Fore said. (AH)