Financial crisis and children

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

See: http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/990429/bvd.html
Thursday April 29, 7:43 pm Eastern Time
World financial crisis not over - UNICEF'S Bellamy
By Tom Brown

BOGOTA, April 29 (Reuters) - The global financial crisis is not over
and its costs, including a rise in malnutrition and child labor, are
painfully clear in the developing world, the head of the United
Nations Children's Fund said on Thursday.

Referring to International Monetary Fund Managing Director Michel
Camdessus, UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said, ``Mr.
Camdessus has declared the financial crisis over. But the longer-term
human implications of what we believe is a continuing financial crisis
will continue.''

Bellamy, who spoke to a gathering of foreign journalists, was in
Bogota for a biannual meeting of UNICEF representatives from across
Latin America and the Caribbean.

Camdessus told reporters on Sunday in Washington that the financial
crisis that erupted in Asia in the summer of 1997 and later spread to
Russia and Latin America ``seems to be'' over.

But Bellamy said there were still major problems in countries such as
Indonesia and Brazil and that ``globalization'' -- a term once
synonymous with fast-spreading economic growth -- now also referred to
the spread of poverty around the globe.

``We've seen an increase in malnutrition and we've seen a decrease in
school attendance,'' said Bellamy, when asked about the impact on
children of the recession gripping much of the developing world.

``Kids are dropping out to work, basically,'' she added.

Even in the best of times, when developing countries were enjoying
explosive economic growth, Bellamy said the gap between rich and poor
widened in regions such as Latin America, where 65 percent of all
children now live in poverty.

``One of the big challenges, certainly in this region, are the
disparities, because the poor are still really poor and not benefiting
necessarily from the economic growth,'' she said.

Bellamy said too little was being done to ease the plight of Latin
America's poor.

``We're not advocating against economic growth, it's good,'' Bellamy
said.

``But what can't be ignored -- or what can't be taken as a given -- is
that economic growth will automatically reach all the population
because it clearly isn't and the disparities are getting greater,''
she said.

``The disparity in this region is among the worst that we have in
world today,'' added Per Engebak, UNICEF's director for Latin America
and the Caribbean.

``And the policies that have been put in place recently really don't
have much effect in reducing that disparity,'' Engebak added. ``...
There is no guarantee that good economic growth, and good
macroeconomic stability, will have an effect on that (poorest) segment
of the population.''