James P. Grant, Director of UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, died of cancer on January 28 at the age of 72. Mr. Grant assumed office as the third Executive Director of UNICEF, with the rank of Under Secretary-General of the United Nations, in January 1980. He resigned on January 23 this year because of ill health. Although Mr. Grant was diagnosed with cancer in May 1993, he continued to lead UNICEF with characteristic energy and commitment until he resigned. Over the last year, despite his illness he met with more than 40 world leaders to seek their active support for the cause of children.
During his 15 year tenure as head of UNICEF, Mr. Grant was acclaimed for his tireless advocacy, and his unflagging commitment, vision and dedication to improving the lives of the world's least advantaged — the children of the developing world. Under his leadership, UNICEF has confronted and decried what Mr. Grant called "the silent emergency," the daily tragedy of millions of children caught in the relentless downward spiral of poverty, population, and envirorunental degradation. Each year these conditions cause the deaths of millions and result in many more stunted lives. During Mr. Grant's term UNICEF also responded to the "loud" emergencies, and worked to save the lives of children and families caught in disaster such as earthquakes, famine and war.
In his statement following Mr. Grant's death, United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, said "Very few men or women ever have the opportunity to do as much good in the world as James Grant; and very few have ever grasped the opportunity with such complete and dedicated commitment. He will be remembered as a most distinguished servant of the United Nations and as one of the greatest international public servants of his generation." The President of the United States, Bill Clinton, who a year ago awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom said, "Throughout his long career Jim Grant was a visionary leader — one of the most distinguished international public servants of our time."
Grant was born in Beijing, as a Canadian citizen on May l2, 1922, and spent his first 15 years in China, where his father worked as a medical missionary. He graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1943 with a degree in economics. He became an American citizen after the war. In 1951, he graduated from Harvard Law School. He began his life long career in international civil service in the 1940s serving with the U.N. Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in China. In 1962 he became Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near East and South Asian Affairs and a deputy director of the International Cooperation Administration, a precursor of the United States Agency for International Development. He later became an assistant administrator of the Agency for International Development, serving until 1969, when he helped found the Overseas Development Council and became its president and CEO. He remained there until becoming head of UNICEF in 1980.
UNICEF under Mr. Grant's leadership became in many ways the most successful of all the UN agencies. During the darkest days of the Cold War and amid the Third World economic crises of the 1980s, UNICEF began to mobilize societies and the international community around a package of low-cost interventions and services called the Child Survival and Development Revolution. This campaign promotes four simple, low-cost methods for child welfare — growth monitoring, oral rehydration therapy, breastfeeding and immunization, all of which are instituted throughout the world's poorest countries. To date as a result of this world wide campaign, 25 million children are alive today who otherwise would not be; tens of millions are healthier, stronger, and less of a burden upon their mothers and families; and birth rates are failing. UNICEF can fairly claim to be the moving force behind the raising of world immunization levels from 20 percent of all children in 1980 to 80 percent of all children in 1990.
In 1980, soon after assuming office, Mr. Grant established the annual State of the World's Children report, which provides an assessment of conditions and prospects for children worldwide. The annual Progress of Nations report, established by Mr. Grant in 1993, serves as an important benchmark for the international community by ranking countries on their progress in meeting their basic health, nutrition and education needs.
James Grant was an unquenchable optimist and always believed in the human potential to achieve what others considered impossible. He worked 12 hour days and 6-½ day weeks with assistants serving him in shifts and spent much of his time on the road often clocking more air time than most airline crews. He was a tireless fundraiser with a knack for publicity and an ability to persuade celebrities to become UNICEF goodwill ambassadors, beginning with Danny Kaye. Other included Liv Ullman, Roger Moore, Peter Ustinov, Harry Belafonte, Pele and Audrey Hepburn. To draw attention to the plight of children, he used great creativity, and organized many attention-getting campaigns, such as leading a convoy to Sarajevo after negotiating a week of tranquility.
Jim Grant was very media savvy and used his position as chief spokesperson for the world's children to point out the positive facts of progress to those who were consumed with the pessimism that is dangerously fashionable these days among those who debate international affairs. A good example of this is his letter to the New York Times on May 26, 1986 in response to reporting about "aid fatigue" related to Hands Across America and Bob Geldof's athletic follow up to Live Aid, called Sport Aid. Mr. Grant wrote,"What is all this nonsense about aid fatigue surrounding Hands Across America and Sport Aid? On one day, some five million Americans linked hands virtually across this continent and raised as yet uncounted millions of dollars tor this country's hungry and homeless. On the same day, some 20 million people in over 266 cities and 74 countries on 6 continents ran for the hungry and homeless of Africa, also raising as yet uncounted millions. Either event by itself would rank as the largest simultaneous mass participation demonstration ever mobilized for any cause. Together, they represent an incredible mass outpouring of concern and commitment — of demand — that those who hunger should be fed and those who are vulnerable should be sheltered. Obviously, the people of the world are not aided out. They are more determined than ever to embrace all humanity as one people. They await their governments to catch up with them."
James Grant had been remarkably effective at setting specific measurable goals, lobbying tirelessly for their achievement, monitoring and publicizing progress towards them. Perhaps the highlight of his career was organizing the World Summit for Children (WSC) in 1990, the first international summit of its kind where world leaders met to address serious social issues. The summit held in New York with an unprecedented 71 heads of state and government participating established 27 child health and welfare goals for the year 2000. These goals include controlling the major childhood diseases and the world wide eradication of polio; cutting childhood malnutrition in half; reducing death rate tor children under five by one-third; cutting in half matemal mortality rates; providing safe water and sanitation for all communities; and making family planning services and basic education universally available.
Based on the track record of UNICEF's Child Survival and Development Revolution campaign during the 19Ws, national leaders learned that productive things can be achieved for families and children at relatively low cost and that it can be good politics for them to do so. As a direct result of the 1990 World Summit for Children more than 130 countries have issued or are actively working on National Programs of Action to implement the WSC international goals. All of these goals were incorporated into Agenda 21 at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
By identifying the doable and putting the needs and the rights of children at the very center of development strategies, Grant helped humankind for the first time in history to make long term plans for its young. This was not based on institutional vested interest or sentimentality about the young, but the reality that the world will not solve its major problems until it does a better job of protecting and investing in the physical, mental and emotional development of its children. He personally met with more than 100 Heads of State or Government to enlist their personal and political support for the achievement of specific goals for children. He always had a sachet of oral rehydration salts in his pocket, along with the latest figure of the number of children being killed and maimed by common and preventable diseases in the nation concerned.
A major milestone in his career was the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child — A Magna Carta for children. The convention, which was initiated by Grant became international law in September 1990. This convention sets universally accepted standards to protect children, enhancing worldwide efforts to ensure the survival, protection and development of children everywhere. The convention recognizes the child's right to leisure and to play and to live a full and rich life. It also deals with neglect and abuse which children face in all countries and draws attention to children exposed to economic and sexual exploitation and illegal trafficking. Over 176 countries have signed, or have become States Parties to the Convention by ratification or accession. To date, 169 countries have ratified the Convention, there by making it law in their own countries. Jim Grant was determined that by the end of 1995 every country should have ratified the convention, making it the first truly universal international human rights law. In an action illustrative of his commitment he used his last full day of life to help bring this about.
The United States had been the only major country to withhold its endorsement of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. Because conservatives had objected to the treaty for not defining a fetus as a child with rights and because it bans the death penalty and life in prison without parole for those under 18, President George Bush did not sign it in 1990. (These issues did not even prevent Pope Paul II from praising the Convention.) Other concerns were raised because the convention deals with education, adoption and child welfare, which in the US. are the responsibility of the states.
On January 27, James Grant wrote a letter to President Bill Clinton praising Turn for his references to children's needs as fundamental in his State of the Union address, which he watched from in his hospital bed. In the letter he urged him to "stand firm on USAID's Child Survival programs and other aspects of foreign aid that help the world's poorest." He wrote, "Please allow me to stress in closing, that your prompt signing of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child would make a genuine difference for the global effort to achieve universal ratification by the end of 1995, as called for by the 1992 World Conference on Human Rights." He died the next day at the Mount Kisco Hospital near his home in Croton, New York.
On February 10, the First Lady of the United States, Hillary Rodham Clinton, announced in the presence of UN Secretary General, Boutros Boutros Ghali and a crowd of over 2,500 at the Cathedral Church of St. John of the Divine in New York that the United States would sign the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Ms. Clinton, attending a memorial service to honor James Grant said that President Clinton had instructed Secretary of State Warren Christopher to take the necessary steps and that US. Ambassador Madeleine Albright would sign the treaty in one week. "Nobody fought harder for this convention and its noble cause than Jim Grant. That was the last thing he spoke to me about before his death," she said. The First Lady added, "James Grant saved more lives in the past 15 years than any other person in the world."
Brian Webster writes about technology issues for Unity News. He is a volunteer with RESULTS, an international anti-poverty citizens lobby that supports microenterprise solutions and an active member of the Association of Internet Professionals.He can be reached at brian@brianwebster.com.