We heard many tributes about Jim Grant this morning, but there is one thing that people don't know. I don't think you know that Jim Grant used to hold people captive in his office. I was one of those held in captivity and I could not leave his office until he had emptied all his pockets and in one was the immunization vile, iodine, the Vitamin A, and the car keys. Those of you who know about the car keys also know this was important, Maggie, to assist you in your role. Like many of you I feel a sense of loss that Jim could not be here to share in this important occasion. Jim was truly our conscience. He never let us forget that together we are the trustees of the world's children. For many heads of state he was probably a thorn in their side, but they knew he was right and he could only persuade them to do the right thing. Now it's up to all of us to carry on with this legacy. If Jim were here today I'm sure he would be the first one to remind us we have much unfinished business.
Many of the speakers this morning have spoken very eloquently about our success and we need to celebrate our successes, we need to remind the world that together a lot has been accomplished and we need to continue to build on that success whether is on immunization, rehydration, leprosy, on maternal survival, on child survival, the list is exhaustive and again our speakers had much to say about that. But as also as others have said we can not rejoice when twelve million children under five are still dying each year needlessly. And when more than one billion people live in extreme poverty we must ask ourselves how we can hope to achieve our child health goals while leaving adrift the important health provider of all, the mother.
There are many threats that face children today. Many of them are insidious whether they are in the form of poverty, armed conflict, family breakdown, child abuse, illiteracy, aids, economic exploitation often manifested through child prostitution. And all of these stress constitute part of the unfinished business of the twentieth century, our unfinished business. The children's summit gave us a starting point in terms of mobilization and goal setting. This conference along with the Beijing conference, along with the social development conference are very important to remobilize the people of the world to keep the momentum and to ensure that we keep on sharpening the strategy that we have and here we must pay tribute to Dr. Tze for his dream and his capacity to hold us with him to achieving those goals.
In order to collapse my comment because of time I will speak directly to the role of government agencies in child health. It is very easy for governments to say it is up to the people, it is up to communities. It is also easy for people to say it's up to government and I think we all have to stop passing the buck and realize that individuals, families, communities, non-government organizations, private sector and governments together must really take on this great mission, the role of trustee to the children to achieve health for all and especially the goals of the summit. And governments cannot advocate any more than others.
I would like to propose five areas where government involvement in child health to me is important and is important in all countries in the world. First in insuring the conditions are right for child survival and development at all levels. Second that government must act to insure the personal security of the child both within the family and within society. Third the governments take measures to promote, to support the empowerment of individuals of families, of communities towards healthy lifestyles, towards environmental healthy situations and to achieve greater self help. Fourth governments must insure that there are self sustaining systems and services in place for healthy child development and finally governments need to lead in establishing national goals and priorities and principles for child health. By leading I mean to mobilize all those who need to come together in order to establish these and also to monitor them after.
Again because of time I will only speak on some of these areas. The first that I mentioned that the right conditions for child development and survival are right. This is where we probably have the greatest opportunity to make a difference and we have made a difference and very often with very modest investments. Essential conditions such as safe drinking water, sanitation, food security, adequate shelter, freedom from common ailments are those that do come to mind when we talk about these conditions. We have heard this morning a lot about immunization. Seta was very pleased to be part of assisting in immunizing the children of the world and we've done that in working in cooperation with WHO, with UNICEF, with countries bilaterally and also with a Canadian partner, the Canadian Health Association.
We have also been involved as another condition for development to take place in a number of nutrition programs particularly in a very interesting micro nutrient initiative which is banished in Canada by the Canadian Development Research Center. We have also been involved in the nutrition side in working with UNICEF and others in the iodine deficiency war and this is one that we know we will win because we are getting close to achieving the results that we were looking at. When we look at conditions being right to a great extent we talk about situations that individuals on their own can not do alone and this is why I raise the importance of governments being there. This is why in Canada a few months ago the Canadian government issued the new policy statement on foreign policy and as part of that the government decided that Seta would attribute 25% of it's budget to meeting basic human needs. So Richard are we not only pleased to be part of your 20/20 but we felt it was important enough that we did go beyond and will be attaining our 25% commitment on that part.
Of course when we talk about having the right conditions I'm really talking about much broader conditions than those directly effecting on a day to day the survival of children. We have talked a lot this morning about once survival has been obtained, children have to develop in the most optimal way. Because again if we don't not only they will suffer but their children and the planet as well. And this is where access to early education, to formal and informal education at the primary level and hopefully well beyond that, but at least at the primary level is so vital. This is where the education of young girls has been quite prevalent in the last few years only and many of us are working together around the globe to ensure that young women do have access to education in the same way that boys do.
I would like to go beyond this but for the sake of time again I will not comment in details on those but indeed when we are looking at setting the conditions straight we can not overlook the questions of gender equity. We have to work together to eliminate whether it is genital mutilation, inadequate nutrition, reduced access to primary education as I mentioned before and gender control of births that do cut countless lives short before they ever begin. I'm here referring of course to prenatal tests that allow to detect the sex of the unborn children with very often ensuing abortions if the child is not of the desired sex. I think within their borders governments must do everything possible to ensure that laws against harmful discriminatory practice are enforced and respected. In sighting those conditions of course maternal child health, sustainable family livelihood are all important areas that we could all speak about at great length.
I would like to comment briefly on the second area that I identified for government action and that is the personal security of the child both within the family and within society. Prevention of family violence, protection of the child during situation of armed conflict and protection of children in difficult circumstances, the street children, child prostitute are all within the very important responsibility of government intervention. Many of the child health problems that we see globally are the direct effects of poverty. Poverty deprives children of the essentials of life and very often of life itself and drives them to lifestyles, whether it is begging, whether it is selling their bodies that we know is not in keeping with the trustee role that we have. More recently aids and civil wars are contributing to a new phenomenon and that is the parentless children or a new generation of parentless children. Not only orphans but children who do not have an extended family either. Again I think we all have together to see what it is that we can do to support these children who are in extremely difficult situation so that they do find at least a reasonable chance of developing like other children.
I would like to comment briefly on the one aspect which I mentioned, the fourth one, which is putting self sustaining systems in place and here again all of us have an important share in that but so do governments. I think government must have a genuine commitment to help promotion and healthy public policy. There must be a national system that is driven by principles, particularly universal access to health care. Recognizing different cultures, the different situations of each country, but I think all of us recognize that health has to be a right of all citizens, not just that of a privileged few. Secondly governments must also ensure that the health system has built in mechanisms for public participation in policy making and resource allocation. Whether is it local government, whether it is health facilities, whether it is governments of other levels that all have to be part of deciding what is best for them and hopefully at various levels being held accountable for ensuring that this happens. In this realm of providing for health systems and ensuring that health services exist, again I think that governments have played and must continue to play an important role in human resource development, health professionals, health workers, workers appropriate to the situation that various communities find themselves in. So that in looking at health systems, at health services I realize there are great debates in many countries about the cost of these and indeed governments and the people of the country have to ensure that the services that we have are in a shape and form that are affordable, but I think affordability does not mean that we have to neglect protecting our people.
I mentioned earlier the importance of governments being there to assist in empowering population to also work with all of its partners in society in ensuring that there are goals, that there are policies, that there are principles and again I think this is an area that governments cannot afford to pass on.
There are in many countries harsh economic times. These are not necessarily encourage generosity of the spirit towards worthy causes and there is no worthier cause than that of the world's children. But I believe that governments must take a very important role and lead by also creating an enabling environment in which our child health goals can be reached. Whether this includes ensuring that basic human needs are met, whether to ensure that mothers are able to be not only alive but well and supporting their children, that gender equity exists, personal security and protection of children is there and that we have self sustaining health systems. I think governments must also be able to demonstrate new ways of achieving all of these that are perhaps more effective in certain countries than they have been up to now. But above all they have to be in true partnership with all the elements of society. A number of you have mentioned the importance of getting governments and mulitlateral institutions to work together to eradicate poverty around the world and of course in the institution that I am this is something that we believe in very deeply.
There are only five years left and not a moment to be lost. Jim Grant knew that better than anyone. May his memory be a blessing and an inspiration to all of us. Thank you.