Like many of you I’m currently participating in virtual events at the UN General Assembly. Were it not for the pandemic, many of us would have been in New York exchanging ideas, developing strategies and marking an important moment in history – the 75th anniversary of the signing of the UN Charter.
I’ve read the Charter many times, but it has never felt more like a living document and call to action across generations. It was framed by leaders who drew from the sorrow of war a conviction that a new order was possible.
International cooperation built on universal human rights, dignity, equality and respect for international law were the foundations of that order.
Looking at the challenges we now face, I can’t help wondering what the leaders who created the UN would think about the international response. While rich countries have torn up the fiscal rule book, rewritten monetary policy and expanded welfare safety nets, the same countries have prevented the IMF and the World Bank from doing the same for the poorest countries. The gap between the financing for humanitarian appeals and the funds delivered has never been greater, as Sir Mark Lowcock pointed out last week. The education crisis has barely registered on the international agenda (do check out our Save our Education campaign for more on this). Efforts to create a mechanism for financing the equitable global distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine are foundering.
Yet none of the above is cause for despair.
One of the privileges of working for Save the Children is that you get daily reminders of hope in the face of adversity. Our colleagues in Yemen and Somalia are reaching children in remote areas through mobile health clinics. In Ethiopia and Zambia our teams are supporting national programmes for distance learning and the return to school. We know that it is sometimes hard to find the proof-points that progress is possible - please take a minute to watch and share this little film to show that it very much is.
You might remember the global forum on childhood pneumonia that we co-convened last January, just before the full force of the pandemic struck. As part of the follow up we have been working with partners to extend access to affordable vaccines, and I’m delighted to say that Indonesia has now agreed a partnership deal that will dramatically cut prices and provide millions of children with protection. As this video shows, our team in Indonesia is putting in the hard yards to tackle a disease that kills 20,000 of the country’s children each year.
Just before sitting down to write this note I spoke with British-Lebanese musician Mika, who led an “I ❤ Beirut", raising an incredible $1m from a virtual audience. Donations will be going towards our emergency response efforts, which include weather proofing damaged homes, supporting vulnerable and displaced families with food and cash grants, and providing ongoing psychological support for children and families. My colleague Baraa Shkeir, based in Save the Children’s Lebanon office, talks more about the future for children in the region here.
As a UK-based agency we cannot – and have not – turned a blind eye to what is going on in our own backyard.
We have raised £2 million to provide emergency support to families on low incomes with the cost of food, basic items, toys and learning packs. We’ve also distributed over 70,000 learning packs to children who don’t have access to computers and mobile data. In the summer, we published a report on the experience of Life under Lockdown for children in the UK, drawing on the experience of children, our partners, and other experts – do check it out if you get a moment.
As the world’s largest development NGO for children, we are acutely aware of our responsibility to do everything in our power to make a difference. In that context, I’m delighted to report that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has authorised Save the Children to resume bidding for government funding, which will enable us to reach more children over the coming months. However, in a crisis of this order of magnitude, no amount of action by local communities and NGOs can substitute for effective international cooperation.
My hope is that we will be able to work together to forge the coalitions that make change possible.
Reading the reflections of the leaders involved in the founding of the UN you get a sense of the urgency and common purpose that drove their mission. One of those leaders was Eleanor Roosevelt. She was the only woman in the first US delegation to the UN and the first chair of the Commission on Human Rights. There’s a lovely line in the book she finished just before her death: “The future is in our hands to mould as we like. But we cannot wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow is now.”
For the children who will live with the consequences of the actions we take, or fail to take, in the weeks and months ahead, that neatly summarises what is at stake.
