MOSCOW, November 20 (Sputnik) – United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) urged the global community Thursday to utilize the benefits of technological innovation to help tackle the issues children around the globe are facing.
"To minimize the risks of change and maximize its benefits for the most disadvantaged children, we need new products and processes, new partners and new models of partnership. These must be accessible to and influenced by disadvantaged and vulnerable people, and grounded in a better understanding of their realities and needs. For innovation alone is not enough; we need innovation that both embodies and advances inclusion and opportunity for all children," UNICEF said in its the annual The State of the World's Children Report released Thursday.
The report whose theme this year is Reimagine the Future: Innovation for Every Child notes that "too many children still confront the future with their needs unaddressed, their rights unrealized and their potential thwarted."
The document also endorses the examples of innovations already in place, such as Vibrasor, a device helping people with hearing problems move safely through urban areas, which was invented by two teenage girls in Colombia or a urine-powered generator invented by Nigerian teenage girls to help those who have no permanent access to electricity.
"For innovation to benefit every child, we have to be more innovative – rethinking the way we foster and fuel new ideas to solve our oldest problems," UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake said in a press statement.
The report marks 25 years since the Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted by the UN General Assembly. Universal Children's Day proclaimed by the UN is celebrated annually on November 20 to promote children's welfare around the globe.
