When the lives and the rights of children are at stake, there must be no silent witnesses.

Learn all you can about people in other parts of the world. Understanding how people in other countries live and work and play teaches us to respect them and promote peace everywhere.

Girls' education is the single best investment that any society can make.

What is needed now are increased efforts to promote youth participation and commitment; more services aimed at youth; more parental involvement; more education and information, using schools and other sites; more protection for girls, orphaned children and young women;and more partnerships with people with HIV and AIDS.

Corporate partners help UNICEF fund our programmes for children, advocate with us on their behalf, or facilitate our work through logistical, technical, research or supply support.

It's estimated that there may be two hundred and fifty million children in the world engaged in some form of exploitative child labour.

The Convention is not only a visionary document. We are reminded daily that it is an agreement that works - and its utility can be seen in the everyday use to which I have seen it increasingly being put by country after country, in policy, in practice and in law.