India (Commonwealth Union)_ The United Nations Children Emergency Fund (Unicef) is supporting the Government’s flagship schemes for the upliftment of children and the promotion of gender equality by monitoring the realization of child rights.
It provides technical support on child rights to commissions for the protection of child rights at national and state levels towards further improving monitoring and implementation of rights.
Unicef is supporting the Government by monitoring the realization of child rights for the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao and Jan Dhan programs.
The United Nation’s body for the care and progress of children supports the capacity-building of key ministries and local governments to generate and use evidence for evaluating policies with a strong focus on equity. Most of its initiatives are around the control of child marriage in India.
Joint initiatives
In recent times, the Union Government has included the international platform in other initiatives. In March 2022, the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MoWCD), in partnership with the Ministry of Education and UNICEF, launched a landmark campaign, Kanya Shikhsa Pravesh Utsav.
Around the same time, the MoWCD held the Nari Shakti Varta on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), and Financial Literacy for Young Women. This, too, was in partnership with Unicef.
There are other programs where Unicef says it supports the Government to implement, monitor, and report on equitable programs to respond to the needs of children’s rights in the country.
However, lately there has been a controversy-of-sorts with the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) Chairperson Priyank Kanoongo writing to its state units to not work with Unicef. He claimed that the latter was involved in activities “out of its purview”, claimed a recent news report. (Blitzindia)
