United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has been working in Nigeria since 1953 to support the government of Nigeria implement programmes and policies for the realisation of childrens rights. Currently it is one of largest UNICEF country programmes in the world.
Promoting Breastfeeding
Nigeria is the most populous nation in Africa with more than 140 million people, including 40 million children under-five years old. Well over half of the population lives in poverty, with wide regional disparities. Progress in achieving the Millennium Development Goals in Nigeria will contribute tremendously to attainment of the Goals for the continent.
UNICEF are in the midst of designing our new country programme. It will seek to build on the achievements of the last programme with a major thrust on disparity reduction. It will consolidate progress made on child survival and maternal health through a roll out of Integrated Maternal New Child Health strategy and strengthen systems development. The new programme will run from 2012-2016.
The United Nations (UN) officially came into existence on 24 October 1945, when the UN Charter had been ratified by a majority of the original 51 Member States. The day is now celebrated each year around the world as United Nations Day.
The purpose of the United Nations is to bring all nations of the world together to work for peace and development, based on the principles of justice, human dignity and the well-being of all people. It affords the opportunity for countries to balance global interdependence and national interests when addressing international problems.
Humanitarian
There are currently 192 Members of the United Nations. They meet in the General Assembly, which is the closest thing to a world parliament. Each country, large or small, rich or poor, has a single vote, however, none of the decisions taken by the Assembly are binding. Nevertheless, the Assembly’s decisions become resolutions that carry the weight of world governmental opinion.
The United Nations Headquarters is in New York City but the land and buildings are international territory. The United Nations has its own flag, its own post office and its own postage stamps. Six official languages are used at the United Nations – Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. The UN European Headquarters is in the Palais des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland. It has offices in Vienna, Austria and Economic Commissions in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, Amman in Jordan, Bangkok in Thailand and Santiago in Chile. The senior officer of the United Nations Secretariat is the Secretary-General.
The Nigeria Police Force (NPF) is the principal law enforcement agency in Nigeria with a strength of more than 350,000 men and women. NPF is a federal Police force covering all 36 Nigerian states and the federal capital territory, Abuja.
