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.

For the last 20 years, the Innocenti Report Card series has led the way in comparing children's well-being across rich countries. Report Card 16 develops this further through a multi-level approach to show that children's well-being is influenced by children's own actions and relationships, by the networks and resources of their caregivers, and by public policies and the national context. This approach is aligned with the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, in that it recognizes the responsibilities of governments, families and communities to help realize children's rights and promote their well-being.

The rights of the child in words and pictures.

This Child-Friendly Schools (CFS) Manual was developed during three-and-a-half years of continuous work, involving the United Nations Children's Fund education staff and specialists from partner agencies working on quality education. It benefits from fieldwork in 155 countries and territories, evaluations carried out by the Regional Offices and desk reviews conducted by headquarters in New York. The manual is a part of a total resource package that includes an e-learning package for capacity-building in the use of CFS models and a collection of field case studies to illustrate the state of the art in child-friendly schools in a variety of settings.

As the debate about whether the internet is safe for children rages, The State of the World's Children 2017: Children in a Digital World discusses how digital access can be a game changer for children or yet another dividing line. The report represents the first comprehensive look from UNICEF at the different ways digital technology is affecting children, identifying dangers as well as opportunities. It makes a clear call to governments, the digital technology sector and telecom industries to level the digital playing field for children by creating policies, practices and products that can help children harness digital opportunities and protect them from harm.

Global Citizen from Gulmi recounts Kul Chandra Gautam's journey from a remote village in Nepal, lacking schools, roads and electricity, to the highest ranks of UNICEF. By turns serious, amusing and poignant, it shares the highs and the lows of an illustrious career spanning three decades. It contains candid anecdotes about Gautam's interactions with international personalities such as Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, Bill Gates, Eduard Shevardnadze and King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand as well as UNICEF's celebrity Goodwill Ambassadors. Gautam also shares his insightful views on the future of Nepal, the UN and global society as a whole.