UNICEF noble performance

The Jakarta Post of June 15, 1995, on the front page, raised the acute problem of the malnutrition of Indonesian children, that was divulged by a recent Progress of Nations report issued by UNICEF.

The lesson that we can learn from the report is the fact that if the UN through its political bodies (the Security Council and the General Assembly) is not always successful or outright fails in its efforts to find solutions to the problems of world politics, on the contrary the UN is continuously performing noble deeds as far as the activities of its Specialized Agencies and Special Bodies are concerned. This is something that is not widely known among the public at large. The performance of UNICEF is an outstanding case in point.

Turning to the above cited UNICEF report, it is noteworthy that it brought up the still widespread prevalence of malnutrition, with 40 percent of five-year olds being underweight and 54 percent of under-five death cases being associated with malnutrition.

Moreover, the complex nature of the problem appears to be aggravated by a high maternal death rate caused by the poor condition of women's nutrition and anemia, the use of traditional midwives in villages and the deficiency of sanitation facilities for households, in which access to clean water is still an acute problem.

Another setback affecting children as pointed out by Roger Shrimpton, UNICEF's representative for Indonesia, is that a quarter to a half of Indonesia's children are living in areas with a high risk of iodine deficiency, which causes mental retardation. It was reported that UNICEF urged the government to immediately implement its plans to add iodine to edible salt to protect against iodine deficiency.

Since Indonesia is not a landlocked country but a giant archipelago surrounded by the sea, it sounds rather strange for its culinary to lack iodine. This shows that the rich utilization of seaweed, as a foodstuff, like in Japan, is completely unknown here.

Since speaking of the fate of malnourished children has crucial relevance with the well-being of a large segment of the Indonesian populace of the future, the warning of UNICEF's representative, as reported by The Jakarta Post, at this juncture is timely, when we, Indonesians, above all are in the high spirit to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the nation's independence.

If the nationwide drive for implementing family planning is commonly acclaimed as a successful achievement in the past national development stages, it appears imperative for a similar drive to be carried out to help overcome the problem of malnutrition affecting the nation's children. Such a noble drive should be stepped up nationwide, to which national philanthropic societies or institutions, women's clubs and social organizations can lend their wholehearted support, with a view to improving the quality of life of the country's children. It must be earnestly recognized that all children, whether of the rich or poor, jointly are the nation's future.

Indeed, UNICEF's performance in its aid to developing countries must be praised, in that the cornerstone of its approach to development aid is said to consist of the conviction that children are the means, and thus must be the beneficiaries as well, of national development and that enlightened social policies benefiting children are a prerequisite for sustained economic and social progress. This noble aspect of altruism will surely have an everlasting value.

To conclude, it must be born in mind that the crowning of UNICEF's achievements found manifestation in the award of the Noble Peace Prize conferred on it back in 1965.

SAM SUHAEDI

Jakarta