New Zealand must work harder to improve our children's lives

New Zealand must work much harder to improve the lives of our children, according to Save the Children New Zealand's Executive Director, John Bowis in response to the UNICEF report on child well-being released today.

The publication: 'UNICEF, Child poverty in perspective: An overview of child well-being in rich countries, Innocenti Report Card 7, 2007', places New Zealand in the bottom third of the OECD (the so-called group of 30 rich countries), in far too many areas (NB: See editor's note). We are right at the bottom of reported countries for 2 areas.

"New Zealand used to be proud of its standing in the world in terms of children's access to education, health care and strong families. The UNICEF report shows we have a long way to go until we can, once again, be proud of our children's well-being. Today we stand right at the bottom of the 24 OECD countries reported, when it comes to deaths from accidents and injuries per 100,000 under 19 year olds[i]. We are also bottom out of 23 OECD countries reported for the percentage of 15-19 year olds in education or part time education (figures 2003), showing that we are not doing well in all areas of educational achievement as suggested in the Prime Minister's statement for the opening of parliament yesterday," John Bowis said.

"It is also disturbing that New Zealand is near the bottom or doing poorly in the areas of: infant mortality, health and safety, immunisation, children interacting with parents, and teen pregnancy. It is especially sad to see that so many New Zealand children feel left out, awkward or lonely.

"A major concern is that there are too many areas where data is lacking on New Zealand's situation. We need to know the facts in order to solve the problems, which are causing poor outcomes for children. This reinforces Save the Children's call on the government to produce a child well-being report each year so that we can look at the facts, be accountable for results, and implement appropriate child focussed policies to improve the lives of our children.

"Each and every New Zealander can contribute to improving children's lives. Simple steps such as listening to them or helping them play can make a big difference to children's happiness. Our children have a right to safe and happy lives and we all must play our part," John Bowis said.

The aim of the regular UNICEF reports on child well-being is to encourage monitoring, comparison and debate in order to improve children's lives, and contribute to constructive policy development toward this aim.

Editor's note

There is a lack of data from OECD countries on many of the measures reported on in this report. For example: there are 30 OECD countries but only 24 countries reported on deaths from accidents and injuries per 100,000 and there is variation in the years used for reporting. Only 23 countries reported on the percentage of 15-19 year olds in education or part time education.

While noting these differences, the results still give us a good representation of the situation.

[i] UNICEF has used the latest available figures available from each country. This position is based on an average of 3 years between 1997 and 1999 for New Zealand.