Each generation is faced with new challenges - listening for and to the views of children is one of ours. This year, The State of the World's Children focusses on the responsibility of adults to seek out the perspectives and opinions of children and to take them seriously; and on the responsibility of adults to help children and adolescents develop their competencies for authentic and meaningful participation in the world.

The 2005 edition of UNICEFs annual report examines the key issues which threaten the welfare of children around the world, using the concept of childhood as the state and condition of a childs life. The Convention of the Rights of the Child, adopted in 1989, offers a new definition of childhood based on human rights; yet for hundred of millions of children the promise of childhood is threatened by poverty, armed conflict and HIV/AIDS threaten their survival and development. The report examines these three major threats in detail, and offers a comprehensive agenda of action to combat them. It concludes by calling on all stakeholders, including governments, donors, international agencies and communities to reaffirm and recommit to their moral and legal responsibilities to children.

The 2006 edition of UNICEF's annual report focuses on the millions of children who are most in need of access to essential education, health and protection services, but who are also the hardest to reach and often overlooked by current development programmes. These include children living in the poorest countries and most deprived communities within countries, children who face discrimination on the basis of gender, ethnicity or disability, children caught up in armed conflicts or affected by HIV/AIDS, children who lack a formal identity and who suffer from abuse and exploitation. The report examines the factors which result in their exclusion from current child development programmes and services, and highlights the policy options and actions required to address these challenges, in order to ensure all children benefit from the progress being made to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Topics discussed include: income disparities and child survival, the marginalisation of Roma communities and their children, disability issues, children and HIV/AIDS, children living on the streets, early marriages, child labour, child protection and child rights.

Having a child remains one of the biggest health risks for women worldwide. Fifteen hundred women die every day while giving birth. That's a half a million mothers every year. UNICEF's flagship publication, The State of the World's Children 2009, addresses maternal mortality, one of the most intractable problems for development work.The difference in pregnancy risk between women in developing countries and their peers in the industrialised world is often termed the greatest health divide in the world. A woman in Niger has a one in seven chance of dying during the course of her lifetime from complications during pregnancy or delivery. That's in stark contrast to the risk for mothers in America, where it's one in 4,800 or in Ireland, where it's just one in 48,000. Addressing that gap is a multidisciplinary challenge, requiring an emphasis on education, human resources, community involvement and social equality. At a minimum, women must be guaranteed antenatal care, skilled birth attendants and emergency obstetrics, and postpartum care. These essential interventions will only be guaranteed within the context of improved education and the abolition of discrimination.

The State of the World's Children 2007 reports on the lives of women around the world because gender equality and the well-being of children go hand in hand. When women are empowered to live full and productive lives, children prosper and UNICEF's experience also shows the opposite: When women are denied equal opportunity within a society, children suffer. The report is divided into five sections: a call for equality; equality in the household; equality in employment; equality in politics and government; reaping the double dividend of gender equality.

On 20 November 2009, the global community celebrates the 20th anniversary of the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the unique document that sets international standards for the care, treatment and protection of all individuals below age 18. To celebrate this landmark, the United Nations Children's Fund is dedicating a special edition of its flagship report The State of the World's Children to examining the Convention's evolution, progress achieved on child rights, challenges remaining, and actions to be taken to ensure that its promise becomes a reality for all children. The statistical tables presented in this volume assist in meeting the demand for timely, reliable, comparable and comprehensive data on the state of the world's children.

On 20 November 2009, the global community celebrates the 20th anniversary of the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the unique document that sets international standards for the care, treatment and protection of all individuals below age 18. To celebrate this landmark, the United Nations Children's Fund is dedicating a special edition of its flagship report The State of the World's Children to examining the Convention's evolution, progress achieved on child rights, challenges remaining, and actions to be taken to ensure that its promise becomes a reality for all children.