IKEA donates $31 mn to Unicef

To protect children from violence and abuse in Jammu and Kashmir and to invest in family and community-centred services in Rwanda, among other focus areas, the international charitable body IKEA Foundation has donated $31 million to Unicef through six new grants, a statement said Tuesday.

These grants will focus on early childhood development and education, with five supporting Unicef (United Nations Children's Fund) programmes in Afghanistan, China, India, Pakistan and Rwanda, and the sixth enabling development of information management tools to strengthen emergency response and monitoring.

"To mark the 25th anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), the foundation is boosting its commitment to children with six new grants to Unicef ... the new grants will focus on reaching the most marginalised and disadvantaged children living in poor communities," said an official statement from the IKEA Foundation.

The UNCRC, adopted in 1989, is an international human rights treaty that grants all children and young people (aged 17 and under) a comprehensive set of rights.

Other focus areas include providing thousands of vulnerable children with development opportunities and education as well as improving the welfare of orphans and other vulnerable children.

"The partnership has helped advance the rights and improve the lives of children growing up in some of the world's most difficult places," said Unicef's executive director Anthony Lake in a statement.