The United Nations Children's Fund (or UNICEF) was created by the United Nations General Assembly on December 11, 1946 to provide emergency food and healthcare to children in countries that had been devastated by World War II. In 1953, UNICEF became a permanent part of the UN System and its name was shortened from United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund but is still known by the popular acronym based on this old name. Headquartered in New York City, UNICEF provides long-term humanitarian and developmental assistance to children and mothers in developing countries.
A voluntarily funded agency, UNICEF relies on contributions from governments and private donors. Its programmes emphasize developing community-level services to promote the health and well-being of children. UNICEF was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965 and Prince of Asturias Award of Concord in 2006. In the United States, Canada and some other countries, UNICEF is known for its "Trick-Or-Treat for UNICEF" program in which children collect money for UNICEF from the houses they trick-or-treat at on Halloween night, sometimes instead of candy.
Following the reaching of term limits by Executive Director of UNICEF Carol Bellamy, former United States Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman took control of the organization in May 2005 with an agenda to increase the organization's focus on the Millennium Development Goals. Total income to UNICEF for 2006 was $2,781 million.

Priorities
Education is a proven intervention for improving the lives of all people, including children. Educating young women yields spectacular benefits for the current and future generations, and specifically affects a range of UNICEF priorities including child survival, children in family, immunization, and child protection.
UNICEF's aim is to get more girls into school, ensure that they stay in school and that they are equipped with the basic tools they need to succeed in later life. As part of its on-going efforts to ensure every girl and boy their right to an education, UNICEF's acceleration strategy is speeding progress in girls' enrollment in 25 selected countries during the 2002–2005 period. Period.

Education
Immunization is a direct intervention method which has made great improvements in the health of children world-wide over the past 20 years. But every year, more than 2 million children die from diseases that could have been prevented by inexpensive vaccines.
The plus in the programme is the additional immunizations made possible during interventions. Ranging from client education to nutritional supplements to insecticide-treated mosquito netting, these life-saving services make immunization programmes a powerful tool for child health.

Immunization plus
UNICEF uses the term 'child protection' to refer to preventing and responding to violence, exploitation and abuse against children – including commercial sexual exploitation, trafficking, child labour and harmful traditional practices, such as female genital mutilation/cutting and child marriage. UNICEF's child protection programmes also target children who are uniquely vulnerable to these abuses, such as when living without parental care, in conflict with the law and in armed conflict. Violations of the child's right to protection take place in every country and are massive, under-recognized and under-reported barriers to child survival and development, in addition to being human rights violations. Children subjected to violence, exploitation, abuse and neglect are at risk of death, poor physical and mental health, HIV/AIDS infection, educational problems, displacement, homelessness, vagrancy and poor parenting skills later in life. Among many other programmes, UNICEF supports the international Child Rights Information Network. In 2007, UNICEF published An Overview of child well-being in rich countries, which showed the UK and the USA at the bottom of a league of 21 economically advanced nations when it comes to overall child well-being.

Child protection and well-being
15 million children are now orphaned due to AIDS. It is estimated that by the year 2010 in sub-Saharan Africa alone, more than 18 million children will have lost at least one parent to AIDS. Half of all new infections are people under the age of 25, with girls hit harder and younger than boys. Working to protect and support orphaned children, legal environment. UNICEF is also running several programmes dedicated to controlling both online and off-line child pornography.

HIV/AIDS
Every child must be ensured the best start in life – their future, and indeed the future of their communities, nations and the whole world depends on it.
UNICEF applies a holistic, evidence-based approach to Early childhood, including the following principles:

Preventive and curative health care including immunization, adequate nutrition, and safe water and basic sanitation must be provided as a sine qua non. Early childhood
The heart of UNICEF's work is in the field, with staff in over 150 countries and territories. More than 120 country offices carry out UNICEF's mission through a unique program of cooperation developed with host governments. Seven regional offices guide their work and provide technical assistance to country offices as needed.
Overall management and administration of the organization takes place at its headquarters in New York. UNICEF's Supply Division is based in Copenhagen and serves as the primary point of distribution for such essential items as lifesaving vaccines, antiretroviral medicines for children and mothers with HIV, nutritional supplements, emergency shelters, educational supplies, and more.
Many people in industrialized countries first hear about UNICEF's work through the activities of 37 National Committees for UNICEF. These non-governmental organizations are primarily responsible for fund raising, selling UNICEF greeting cards and products, creating private and public partnerships, advocating for children's rights, and providing other invaluable support. The U.S. Fund for UNICEF [2] is the oldest of the National Committees, founded in 1947.
UNICEF is supported entirely by voluntary funds. Governments contribute two thirds of the organisation's resources; private groups and some 6 million individuals contribute the rest through the National Committees.
Guiding and monitoring all of UNICEF's work is a 36-member Executive Board which establishes policies, approves programs and oversees administrative and financial plans. The Executive Board is made up of government representatives who are elected by the United Nations Economic and Social Council, usually for three-year terms.

Structure of the organization
UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre in Florence, Italy, was established in 1988 to strengthen the research capability of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and to support its advocacy for children worldwide.
The Centre, formally known as the International Child Development Centre, has as its prime objectives to improve international understanding of the issues relating to children's rights, to promote economic policies that advance the cause of children, and to help facilitate the full implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in industrialized and developing countries.
The Programme for 2006-2008 was approved by UNICEF Executive Board in September 2005. It reaffirms the Centre's academic freedom and the focus of IRC's research on knowledge gaps, emerging questions and sensitive issues which are relevant to the realization of children's rights, in developing and industrialized countries. It capitalizes on IRC's role as an interface between UNICEF field experience, international experts, research networks and policy makers and is designed to strengthen the Centre's institutional collaboration with regional academic and policy institutions, pursuing the following four goals:
- Generation and communication of strategic and influential knowledge on issues affecting children and the realization of their rights; - Knowledge exchange and brokering; - Support to UNICEF's advocacy, policy and programme development in support of the Millennium Agenda - Securing and strengthening the Centre's institutional and financial basis.
Three interrelated strategies will guide the achievement of these goals:
- Evidence-based analysis drawing on quantitative and qualitative information, the application of appropriate methodologies, and the development of recommendations to assess and inform advocacy and policy action. - Enhanced partnerships with research and policy institutions and development actors, globally and at regional level, in developing and industrialized countries. - Communication and leveraging of research findings and recommendations to support policy development and advocacy initiatives through strategic dissemination of studies and contribution to relevant events and fora.

The UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre
UNICEF is the world's leading children's organization. Over the 60 years of its history it has become a primary reference for governments and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO), collecting and disseminating more research on children than any other organization, writing position papers on various aspects of the health and environments of children. UNICEF has also organized world-wide fundraising drives, to fund interventions which directly benefit children.
But many groups, governments, and individuals have criticized UNICEF over the years for what they view as failing to meet the needs of their particular group or interest. Recent examples include criticism of its perceived failure to hold the Government of Sudan adequately accountable for the practice of slavery in southern Sudan, its policy against the marketing of breast-milk substitutes in developing world hospitals, and its adherence to the 1990 Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has been ratified by every member state in the United Nations except for the United States (which is a signatory to the convention) and Somalia.
Unlike NGOs, UNICEF is an inter-governmental organization and thus is accountable to governments. This gives it unique reach and access in every country in the world, but also sometimes hampers its ability to speak out on rights violations.
UNICEF has also been criticised for having political bias; while UNICEF aims to fund only non-political organisations, NGO Monitor criticises the UNICEF-funded "Palestinian Youth Association for Leadership and Rights Activation" (PYALARA), a student-run Palestinian NGO, for what NGO Monitor alleges is its covert political agenda justifying suicide bombings and demonising Israel.
The Catholic Church has also been critical of UNICEF, with the Vatican at times withdrawing its donations, because of reports by the American Life League and others that UNICEF has used some of those funds to finance sterilizations and abortions.

Public perception
In recent years UNICEF HQ in New York City has drastically decreased hiring full time employees, preferring instead to hire disposable contractors. These contractors work full time without any legal benefits, while UNICEF staff receive medical benefits, paid vacation, sick time, and access to assorted UN benefits such as a living stipend, an education stipend, paid travel and full access to the UN Secretariat grounds. In order to get around fair labor laws, so-called consultants, many of whom in reality work full time, are required to take one month off unpaid for every eleven worked. This cycle is permitted for four years before the consultant must either incorporate and 'hire her or himself' or discontinue their consultancy with UNICEF. Similar practices are found in the field. For actual staff, there are several class divisions. The "nationals" many of whom perform the same tasks as the "internationals" yet are paid drastically less and receive far fewer benefits. There is also a distinction between "General services" staff and "Professional" staff which translates into a very wide gap in salaries and benefits between the two groups.

Sponsorship
Since 1950 when a group of children in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania donated $17 they received on Halloween to help post-World War II victims, the Trick-or-Treat UNICEF box has become a tradition in North America during the haunting season. These small orange boxes are handed to children at schools and at various locations (such as Hallmark Gold Crown Stores) prior to October 31. To date, the box has collected approximately $91 million dollars (CAD) in Canada and over $132 million (US) in the USA.

Trick-or-Treat UNICEF box
UNICEF sponsors the Art in All of Us [3] initiative founded and organised by Anthony Asael (Belgium) and Stephanie Rabemiafara (Madagascar). The mission of Art in All of Us is to promote creative cultural exchange throughout the UN listed countries, using universal art elements such as photography and poetry. The AiA World Art Book Program of Art in All of Us will present in one book each and every of the 192 UN-listed countries through a single portrait of a resident, a drawing and a poem done by a local child.

See also

UNICEF
UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre
U.S. Fund for UNICEF
UNICEF UK
Identity Foundation- Working for deprived children in Pune, India
Pune Street Children Project by Identity Foundation- Global volunteering initiative on Nabuur.com
UNICEF Snowflake Lighting with Clay Aiken
United for Unicef videos
Intelligent Giving profile of UNICEF UK
Unicef fund raising at Official FC Barcelona UK Penya