Children should benefit from innovation: UNICEF Report

Urgent action is needed to prevent millions of children from missing out on the benefits of innovation, UNICEF says in a new report released today.
State of the World's Children Report -- Reimagine the future: Innovation for Every Child', called upon the government, development professionals, activists and communities to work together to drive new ideas for tackling some of the most pressing problems facing children.
"In our ever-more connected world, local solutions can have global impact, benefiting children in every country who still face inequity and injustice. For innovation to benefit every child, we have to be rethinking the way we foster and fuel new ideas to solve our oldest problems," said UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake.

"The best solutions to our toughest challenges won't come exclusively either from the top down or the grassroots up, or from one group of nations to another. They will come from new problem solving networks and communities of innovation that cross borders and cross sectors to reach the hardest to reach - and they will come from young people, adolescents and children themselves," Lake said.
The report says that innovations such as oral rehydration salts or ready to use therapeutic foods have helped drive radical change in the lives of millions of children in the last 25 years and that innovations are critical to realize rights of the children.

The innovations that are improving lives in countries around the world and featured in the report include Group Handwashing Stations under Swachh Bharat and Swachh Vidyalaya campaign in India.

Others innvations featured include Solar Ear, world's first rechargeable hearing aid battery charger, developed to meet the needs of communities lacking regular access to electricity(Botswana/Zimbabwe), Community-based management of acute malnutrition (CMAM)(Steve Collins, co-Founder and Director of VALID Nutrition) and urine-powered generator to help those without regular access to electricity (Nigeria).
"There are so many young inventors all cross the globe - even in the remotest corner, who are committed to changing the world for children," said Bisman Deu, a 16-year old from Chandigarh, India whose invention of a building material made from rice waste is featured in UNICEF's report.

"Every nation has different problems and every person has different solutions. We need to learn from one another's experiences, come together as a global community of innovation and keep producing ideas that can make a real difference," said Deu.