Analysis of the situation of children in India
- New Delhi United Nations Childern's Fund 1984
- 107p.
Of the more than 270 million children of India, the number who have access to an essential minimum of nutrition, health care and learning opportunities may be less than half.) Indeed the effects of ignorance and ill-health seem to have spread even wider than the immediate results of poverty like lack of food.
This publication is an attempt at contributing to an understanding of the extent, nature, correla tions and consequences of the different factors that determine children's development. It is part of the preparation for a renewed social response to the current situation of children.
The data on which the analysis is based are derived mostly from the official sources of gov ernment and partly from published findings of professional research. A small team drawn from the programme planning and editorial wings of the UNICEF Regional Office, who prepared the document, has tried to interpret the data in relation to the national policy framework for social and economic development. These views do not necessarily reflect the official UNICEF position.
The improvement of the quality of child life is clearly a function of social and economic develop ment. The present analysis suggests the need to accord equal priority to complementing develop ment concerns: economic support, access to nutrition, safe sanitation, means of health, family planning awareness, educational opportunities, participatory communication and, underlying all these, social equity. It should be more productive, perhaps easier, to promote them together than separately.
Situation analysis in a context of change is a continuing process. By recording it in a docu ment, we hope to share it with all who are concerned and thereby to refine it as a tool of programming for children.