1. Key priorities, challenges and opportunities to advance the agenda for children in middle income countries of CIS, Eastern and Southern Europe Yuri Oksamitniy Representative, UNICEF Belarus unite for children 1

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3. Trends and Progress affecting Children and Women  Relatively high level of HDI;  Social transformation fragile – with absolute poverty remaining a severe problem in lower middle income countries. In all countries, vulnerable groups of children continue to live in extreme poverty;  Overall, social and economic reforms are moving ahead but inconsistent and in some cases stalling;  Impacts of the economic crisis and stagnation of growth complicate poverty reduction and countries in the region continue to have underdeveloped social protection systems that fail to provide adequate protection for children. 3

4. Millennium Development Goals: achievements in the situation of children  Under-five mortality and infant mortality reduced by over 50 % since 1990. Belarus, Serbia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Turkey have already reached the MDG 4 target.  Over 95% of children in 20 countries in the region now immunized against preventable diseases.  Transmission of HIV from mother to child has been reduced from over 20% a decade ago to less than 2% today. The region aims to be the first to ensure child’s rights to be born HIV free by 2015.  Many countries in the region have achieved primary school enrolment rates above 90%. 4

5. Millennium Development Goals: challenges  In all countries of this region, many children are left behind by economic growth and national development – their marginalization masked by the improving national and regional averages.  These children and their families are the hardest to reach and the most vulnerable. They include: – children with disabilities; – children deprived of parental care and growing up in institutions; – children of migrant workers; – children from ethnic and linguistic minorities (the Roma, in particular); – rural children and the urban poor; – those in conflict with the law; – and still, in some cases, girls. 5

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7. The extent that disparities affect the most vulnerable children (1) 5.1 million children with disabilities  Out of the estimated 5.1 million children with disabilities in the CEE/CIS region, 3.6 million are not counted in social registers. These children are invisible. At least 2.5 million children of basic school age across the region are still out of school and as many as one third of them are estimated to be children with disabilities. There is an urgent need across the region to find ways to register these children into the child welfare system. 7

8. The extent that disparities affect the most vulnerable children (2) HIV epidemic in CEE/CIS is increasingly affecting women  The HIV epidemic in CEE/CIS is increasingly affecting women, who now account for around 40% of new HIV cases, and marginalized young people, in particular those who inject drug and sex workers. More than 100,000 HIV-positive mothers have given birth since the start of the epidemic: and an estimated 20,000 children in the region were living with HIV in 2011, up from 4,000 in 2001. 8

9. An agenda for children in the Region: key priorities (1) 1.Ensure the right of children to a Family Environment; A 2.Ensure access to justice of All children – enabling justice systems to respect and protect children’s rights; A 3.Expand pre-school education to ensure access of All children to early learning and school readiness opportunities; 9

10. 4.Guarantee inclusive quality education – including for children out of school; 5.Ensure children’s right to be born HIV free; 6.Complete unfinished agenda in the reduction of Infant and U5MR; An agenda for children in the Region: key priorities (2) 10

11. A 7.Ensure access of All children to Early Childhood Education; A 8.Ensure rights of All children, especially the most vulnerable, to adequate Social Protection; 9.Put in place systems for Disaster Risk Reduction; 10. Address the particular needs of Young People including marginalised and at risk adolescents. An agenda for children in the Region: key priorities (3) 11

12. Opportunities: Evidence and Best Practices  The region has a lot to offer to other countries around the world in support of efforts to improve the inclusion of the most vulnerable children. – UNICEF has seen Government programmes, policies and interventions which are fully in line with international standards of best practice; – Policy-makers are looking at ways to prioritize children, and the most vulnerable in particular, within policies, budgets and programmes; – Evidence is being generated on what works, based on effective programmes at community level. 12

13. Opportunities: Horizontal cooperation  Global connectivity offers tremendous opportunities for innovative solutions to grant every child equal rights and access to countries’ experience and expertise.  We need to share knowledge from this region and, at the same time, be open to ideas and knowledge from elsewhere, in a true spirit of horizontal cooperation. 13

14. unite for children THANK YOU! 14