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As companies, countries, and governments consider investments in vaccine production for routine immunization and outbreak response, understanding the complexity and cost drivers associated with vaccine production will help to inform business decisions. Leading multinational corporations have good understanding of the complex manufacturing processes, high technological and R&D barriers to entry, and the costs associated with vaccine production. However, decision makers in developing countries, donors and investors may not be aware of the factors that continue to limit the number of new manufacturers and have caused attrition and consolidation among existing manufacturers. This paper describes the processes and cost drivers in acquiring and maintaining licensure of childhood vaccines. In addition, when export is the goal, we describe the requirements to supply those vaccines at affordable prices to low-resource markets, including the process of World Health Organization (WHO) prequalification and supporting policy recommendation. By providing a generalized and consolidated view of these requirements we seek to build awareness in the global community of the benefits and costs associated with vaccine manufacturing and the challenges associated with maintaining consistent supply. We show that while vaccine manufacture may prima facie seem an economic growth opportunity, the complexity and high fixed costs of vaccine manufacturing limit potential profit. Further, for most lower and middle income countries a large majority of the equipment, personnel and consumables will need to be imported for years, further limiting benefits to the local economy.

Child labour exists throughout the third world including Pakistan. For some unknown reason, the Western Press has chosen to single out Pakistan to decry the system. The May 1997 issue of the Readers’ Digest carried a particularly vicious article entitled `No Life for a Child’ giving harrowing tales of beatings and other forms of coercion to make little children in Pakistan to work in factories. Advantage is taken of the fact that there has been no census in the country for two decades to bloat the figures of child labour. One estimate going the rounds is 15 million. But the more popular figure is 8 million which both UNICEF and SAARC have adopted. ILO produced a figure of 6.3 million till, in 1996 it sponsored a survey which turned up the figure of 3.3 million. In a country with a population of 132 million, every man, woman and child of which is under a debt burden of about Rs 13,021 per annum the figure of 3.3 million labouring children should not take anyone by surprise. Not that this is any justification for child labour.

International monitoring of drinking water and sanitation shapes awareness of countries’ needs and informs policy, implementation and research efforts to extend and improve services. The Millennium Development Goals established global targets for drinking water and sanitation access; progress towards these targets, facilitated by international monitoring, has contributed to reducing the global disease burden and increasing quality of life. The experiences of the MDG period generated important lessons about the strengths and limitations of current approaches to defining and monitoring access to drinking water and sanitation. The methods by which the Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) of WHO and UNICEF tracks access and progress are based on analysis of data from household surveys and linear regression modelling of these results over time. These methods provide nationally representative and internationally comparable insights into the drinking water and sanitation facilities used by populations worldwide, but also have substantial limitations: current methods do not address water quality, equity of access, or extra-household services. Improved statistical methods are needed to better model temporal trends. This article describes and critically reviews JMP methods in detail for the first time. It also explores the impact of, and future directions for, international monitoring of drinking water and sanitation.

There has been increasing recognition of vaccine access challenges in middle-income countries and the need for increased action, particularly in countries that are not eligible for or have transitioned out of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance support. These countries’ immunization systems are more vulnerable than ever as the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbates existing programme challenges, increasing the risk of delayed vaccine introductions, backsliding immunization coverage rates, and increased coverage inequity. The potential health and equity impact of improving immunization outcomes in middle-income countries is substantial. Modelling suggests that the introduction of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine and vaccines for rotavirus and human papillomavirus in this set of Gavi-transitioned and non-Gavieligible middle-income countries in 2020 could have saved an estimated 70,000 lives if 90 % coverage had been reached. Further, increasing coverage for already-introduced vaccines to 90 % could have saved an additional estimated 16,000 lives. Over the past decade, stakeholders have made considerable efforts to identify immunization challenges in middle-income countries as documented in the 2015 SAGE-endorsed Shared Partner Middle-Income Country Strategy. In the coming decade, new global platforms like Gavi 5.0 and the Immunization Agenda 2030 provide opportunities to align on MIC strategies and provide coordinated global support to middle-income countries. The international COVID-19 pandemic response has the potential to lay the foundation for long term support beyond the scope of COVID-19 to non-Gavi eligible middle-income countries. Meanwhile regional mechanisms to address immunization barriers in middle-income countries have grown in number and strength, offering sustainable platforms for cross-country collaboration and the provision of tailored technical support. To ensure that these opportunities are successfully acted upon and that middle-income countries achieve the Immunization Agenda 2030 goals, comprehensive, multi-stakeholder consultations were conducted to identify areas of action with the greatest potential to accelerate immunization progress. Stakeholders should work together to put these findings, highlighted in this paper, into action, adapting their approaches to specific country contexts and learning from and building on existing efforts.

Background Mass media can play critical roles in influencing parents’ attitudes and practice toward the healthy upbringing of children.  Objective This study examined the association between the use of five types of mass media among mothers living in rural and urban areas and the early childhood development (ECD) of their children. Methods We analysed nationally representative and internationally standardized Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey data collected in 2013 and 2019 in Bangladesh. The ECD was calculated using four domains of development: physical health, literacy-numeracy, learning and social-emotional. Mothers’ use of newspapers/magazines, radio, television, internet and mobile phones was the study factor. We used Poisson regression with robust variance. The dataset included 27,091 children aged three or four years. Results Almost 21% of the children were living in urban and 78% in rural areas. Mothers/caretakers of 30% of the children used none, 39% used one, 25% used two, and approximately 6% used three or more of the five types of media. Mobile phones and television were the dominant types of media, both in terms of the number of users and the frequency of use. Overall, 68.87% of the children were on track in terms of their ECD and 31.13% were not. A significantly larger proportion of urban children (74.23%) than rural children (67.47%) were on track in their ECD. The prevalence of children being on track of ECD increases by 4% (aPR 1.04; 95%CI: 1.01–1.06) for each additional media use among women who lived in urban areas and increases by 7% if women live in rural areas. In terms of the individual formats of media, using newspapers, television and internet was found to be significantly associated with the children in rural areas being on track in terms of their ECD. In the urban sample, only radio use was found to be significant. Conclusions Targeted and well-designed child development campaigns that are delivered through popular media types are likely to help mothers to take better care of their children.

Started as a temporary organization, UNICEF navigated Cold War tensions in order to provide assistance to millions of children and their parents throughout the world. The Origins of UNICEF, 1946-1953 reveals how the most well-known child-relief aid organization in the world came into being.

Gender inequality perpetuates women’s economic insecurity and a culture of violence. Parental distress caused by economic pressure may increase violence against children. High levels of gender inequality and interpersonal violence may contribute to higher levels of physical abuse. Using an ecological perspective, this study examines the association of country-level gender inequality and household-level parental physical abuse, and the moderating role of child gender in this association in low- and middle-income countries. We used data on over 420,000 households from the UNICEF Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys and country-level indicators from the United Nations Development Program Human Development data. We employed multilevel logistic regression to examine the association between gender inequality with the log-odds of physical abuse after accounting for country- and individual-level covariates. In order to more fully explore our results, we calculated predicted probabilities of abuse for several scenarios. The results indicated that higher levels of gender inequality were associated with higher probabilities of physical abuse. This association was stronger for female children than for male children. The probabilities of abuse by child gender were indistinguishable, although rates of physical abuse converged as gender inequality increased, at a statistically marginal level. These findings indicate that macro-level interventions that reduce gender inequality are necessary to prevent and reduce child physical abuse.

This paper delves into the fusion of artificial intelligence (AI) and emotional intelligence (EQ) by analyzing the frameworks of international sustainability agendas driven by UNESCO, WEF, and UNICEF. It explores the potential of AI integrated with EQ to effectively address the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with a focus on education, healthcare, and environmental sustainability. The integration of EQ into AI use is pivotal in using AI to improve educational outcomes and health services, as emphasized by UNESCO and UNICEF’s significant initiatives. This paper highlights the evolving role of AI in understanding and managing human emotions, particularly in personalizing education and healthcare. It proposes that the ethical use of AI, combined with EQ principles, has the power to transform societal interactions and decision-making processes, leading to a more inclusive, sustainable, and healthier global community. Furthermore, this paper considers the ethical dimensions of AI deployment, guided by UNESCO’s recommendations on AI ethics, which advocate for transparency, accountability, and inclusivity in AI developments. It also examines the World Economic Forum’s insights into AI’s potential to revolutionize learning and healthcare in underserved populations, emphasizing the significance of fair AI advancements. By integrating perspectives from prominent global organizations, this paper offers a strategic approach to combining AI with EQ, enhancing the capacity of AI systems to meaningfully address global challenges. In conclusion, this paper advocates for the establishment of a new Sustainable Development Goal, SDG 18, focused on the ethical integration of AI and EQ across all sectors, ensuring that technology advances the well-being of humanity and global sustainability.

Background The Washington Group/UNICEF Child Functioning Module (WG/UNICEF CFM) was developed to identify children and youth with disabilities by assessing functional difficulties. This study focuses on the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral components of the WG/UNICEF CFM, as these domains are particularly relevant to understanding child and youth mental health and developmental functioning. The objective of this study was to examine the latent structure of these domains using a graded response scale in a nationally representative sample of Canadian children and youth aged 5–17 years and to evaluate how this approach captures the dimensional nature of functional difficulties. Methods Data for analyses come from the 2019 Canadian Health Survey on Children and Youth ( n  = 33,420). Survey data were collected by Statistics Canada using an electronic questionnaire that was either self-completed online or interviewer-administered by telephone. To assess the latent structure of the WG/UNICEF CFM, analyses were conducted in four linked phases focusing on the following 9 domains: self-care, communication, learning, remembering, concentrating, accepting change, behavior, relationships, and emotions. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted first, followed by, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), then evaluations of measurement invariance across age and sex and external validity using structural equation modeling and instrumental variables. Results Results indicated that a two-factor model best described the data, χ2(26, N  = 16,810) = 619.076, p  < 0.002, CFI = 0.98, TLI = 0.97, RMSEA = 0.037). Factor one represented Cognitive, Behavioural and Interpersonal Functional Difficulties; while Factor two represented Emotional Functional Difficulties. The construct validity tests supported the distinction between the two factors by demonstrating stronger associations with instrumental variables measuring similar underlying constructs. Conclusions This study extends existing research by demonstrating the utility of the WG/UNICEF CFM in assessing cognitive, behavioral, interpersonal, and emotional functional difficulties at the population level in a high-income country. The measure’s strong psychometric properties, ease of use, and cost-free administration support its applicability in general population health surveys of children and youth. Findings highlight the value of a dimensional approach to functional difficulties, offering a more comprehensive understanding of population-level variations in functioning. Integrating this measure into large-scale surveys can facilitate trend monitoring, improve data-driven policy interventions, and support strategic planning for education, healthcare, and social services. These insights contribute to optimizing resource allocation and ensuring equitable access to services that address the diverse functional needs of children and youth.

Ten of the 15 seats on the U.N. Security Council are held by rotating members serving two‐year terms. We find that a country’s U.S. aid increases by 59 percent and its U.N. aid by 8 percent when it rotates onto the council. This effect increases during years in which key diplomatic events take place (when members’ votes should be especially valuable), and the timing of the effect closely tracks a country’s election to, and exit from, the council. Finally, the U.N. results appear to be driven by UNICEF, an organization over which the United States has historically exerted great control.