Family Futures

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Caring, supportive and protective families can

break the intergenerational cycle of poverty,

inequity and discrimination

David Anthony, Chief, Policy Advocacy and Coordination, Division of Policy and Strategy, UNICEF

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n 20 November 2014, the global community

celebrates the twenty-fifth anniversary of the

Convention on the Rights of the Child. This

unique document sets out the universal standards for the

care, treatment and protection of all individuals below the

age of 18, and is the most widely endorsed human rights

treaty in history.

Over the past 25 years, the convention has helped to trans-

form the way children are viewed and treated throughout

the world. This begins with its preamble, which cites

the family as the fundamental building block of society

and the natural home for the development of adults and

particularly children, and recognizes that children, for their

full and harmonious growth, should grow up in a happy,

loving and understanding family environment. Eight of

the convention’s 49 articles also explicitly underscore the

central role of family relations and parental guidance in

realizing children’s rights.

The convention is the guiding light for the work of

the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), whose

mandate includes:

• mobilizing political will and material resources to help

countries, particularly developing countries

• ensuring a ‘first call for children’

• building countries’ capacity to form appropriate policies

and deliver services for children and their families.

Caring, supportive, protective families are critical to children’s

well-being and the realization of their rights. And they are

never more important than in the earliest years of a child’s

life. Good nutrition and health care, and consistent loving care

and encouragement from families and caregivers to learn in

the early years of life help children to do better at school, be

More than half of the reduction in under-five child mortality during the past

four decades can be attributed to the increase in women’s education

Families are of fundamental importance to stable, prosperous and rights-

respecting societies