UNICEF organises the ‘I World Summit in Favour of Children’

In 1990, UNICEF organised the I World Summit in Favour of Children which brought together a greater number of world leaders than had ever before taken part in the United Nations. It was an unprecedented event, not only for UNICEF but also for the world and, especially, for the children, as this was the first time in the history of the UN that a Summit had been organised for exclusively children’s affairs. A «World Declaration on the Survival, Protection and Development of Children and a Plan of Action» was approved for implementation. World leaders committed themselves to direct their policies according to the principle of children first, accepting that the needs of children should be a high priority when allocating resources both during economic booms and in slumps, at the national and international level. The commitments undertaken at the Summit and the coming into force of the Convention established the framework for the design of public policies for protecting and guaranteeing children’s rights for the next decade. That same year, the World Conference on Education for Everyone was held, attended by practically all the governments in the world as well as many international organisations and charities. The Conference passed a global vision of basic education and established a frame of action which set itself the goal that, in the year 2000, 80% of all 14-year-old children would have completed primary education with a certain level of success.