Characteristics and Environments of UNICEF

The United Nation's Chidren's Fund (formerly the United Nation's International Chidren's Emergency Fund) is mandated by the United Nations General Assembly to advocate for children's rights protection, "to help meet their basic needs and to expand their opportunities to reach their full potential" (UNICEF, 2004). UNICEF works all over the world to protect and defend children and their rights as human beings. UNICEF operates in industrialized and non-industrialized countries with adolescents and youth, communication for development, emergencies, evaluation and good practices, gender equality, statistics and monitoring, supplies and procurement, research, rights and results, and situation analysis (What we do). Focus areas of UNICEF include child survival and development, basic education, gender equality, HIV/AIDS, child protection, policy advocacy, and partnerships (What we do). UNICEF is interesting to me because this is an international initiative to help children worldwide, and quite an admirable effort on the part of many countries to improve the quality of life for children everywhere. This paper will define UNICEF's vision and mission, outline how UNICEF is governed and staffed, identifies the key stakeholders and how they influence UNICEF, describes the community collaborations, marketing, and public relations strategies UNICEF uses, discusses how UNICEF demonstrates value of diversity, and discusses environmental trends UNICEF is facing and how they are dealing with these trends and forces.
UNICEF has a detailed and comprehensive vision and mission statement, which follows:
UNICEF is mandated by the United Nations General Assembly to advocate for the protection of children's rights, to help meet their basic needs and to expand their opportunities to reach their full potential.
UNICEF is guided by the Convention on the Rights of the Child and strives to establish children's rights as enduring ethical principles and international standards of behaviour towards children.
UNICEF insists that the survival, protection and development of children are universal development imperatives that are integral to human progress.
UNICEF mobilizes political will and material resources to help countries, particularly developing countries, ensure a "first call for children" and to build their capacity to form appropriate policies and deliver services for children and their families.
UNICEF is committed to ensuring special protection for the most disadvantaged children - victims of war, disasters, extreme poverty, all forms of violence and exploitation and those with disabilities.
UNICEF responds in emergencies to protect the rights of children. In coordination with United Nations partners and humanitarian agencies, UNICEF makes its unique facilities for rapid response available to its partners to relieve the suffering of children and those who provide their care.
UNICEF is non-partisan and its cooperation is free of discrimination. In everything it does, the most disadvantaged children and the countries in greatest need have priority.
UNICEF aims, through its country programmes, to promote the equal rights of women and girls and to support their full participation in the political, social, and economic development of their communities.
UNICEF works with all its partners towards the attainment of the sustainable human development goals adopted by the world community and the realization of the vision of peace and social progress enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations (UNICEF, 2004).
Simply reading the vision and mission statement of UNICEF almost covers all the topics of this paper. UNICEF works with children up to adolescence to improve their quality of life. UNICEF maintains an overall goal of positive human progress, specifically by providing comprehensive aid in developing nations for healthy child development. UNICEF states an absence of discrimination which shows a distinct respect for diversity and acceptance. UNICEF also takes a particular interest in female and disabled children, since these populations have been significantly underrepresented in former aid and international legislation.
UNICEF is governed by a 36 member Executive Board made up of government representatives . Major decisions on global policies on children are made out of the UNICEF headquarters in New York, NY, USA. Specialized offices include the Supply Division in Copenhagen, Denmark, Europe which provides essential items such as life saving vaccines for children worldwide. UNICEF also operates the Innocenti Research Centre in Florence, Italy, Europe, along with offices in Japan and Brussels, Belgium, Europe to help with fund raising and as liaisons with policy makers. UNICEF is supported totally by voluntary funds, and governments contribute over half of their resources. The rest is provided by private groups and individuals. UNICEF runs 36 National Committees in industrialized nations that "promote children's rights, raise funds, sell UNICEF greeting cards and products, create key partnerships, and provide other invaluable support" (About UNICEF: Structure and contact information, 2008).
Key stakeholders of UNICEF would definitely include children worldwide that receive assistance from UNICEF resources. Donors and governments that provide assistance to UNICEF would also be significant stakeholders. All the families of children who receive help from UNICEF would definitely be affected by an absence of UNICEF resources and I would consider them stakeholders as well. Children who receive assistance from UNICEF resources provide the motivation for UNICEF employees, volunteers, and donors. Without disparity among children worldwide UNICEF would have no benefit in our society, and therefore would most likely not exist. Private donors and individuals provide around a third of UNICEF's financial support, and therefore require special attention from UNICEF marketers. These partners may receive additional benefits along with the respect and comfort provided by knowing you are assisting a child in need. Governments provide around two thirds of UNICEF's financial support, and are significantly represented in all UNICEF activities and events. Healthy citizens are definitely in any government's best interest, and assisting UNICEF with providing care to that nation's children would definitely be beneficial to the governments supporting UNICEF causes.
UNICEF operates a headquarters, regional offices, field office, and national committees. UNICEF provides up to date information to it's consumers via television, radio, and online. Visiting the URL http://www.unicef.org and clicking on the Press Centre tab will provide the user with recent news related to UNICEF activities. Clicking the UNICEF Television & UNICEF Radio tab provides links to UNICEF television video on demand, UNICEF radio, International Children's Day of Broadcasting, UNICEF vodcast, and UNICEF Podcast sections of the website and information on how to obtain UNICEF updates via these devices (Video/Audio). UNICEF also advertise through well-known national committee campaigns that include Check Out for Children, Change for Good, and Trick or Treat for UNICEF (About UNICEF: Structure and contact information, 2008). These media outlets and public activities allow UNICEF to connect with the communities of the children and females they serve along with providing up to date information to UNICEF partners.
UNICEF is all about respecting diversity. Diversity seems to be a recurring theme among all UNICEF events and activities, even down to screenings for UNICEF volunteers. UNICEF serves 190 countries worldwide with no regard to race, ethnicity, gender, creed, or any other diversity factors. As an international organization, respecting and recognizing cultural and gender differences is an integral factor of everyday business at UNICEF.
UNICEF is attacked by many different environmental trends '" political, economic, social, and technological. Visiting the Press Centre on the UNICEF website addresses many of the political, economic, and technological trends UNICEF faces daily. Civil wars, epidemics, plagues, natural disasters, political disrupt, and financial fluctuations are all areas UNICEF recognizes as events requiring assistance for children of nations affected by the event. Current events posted to the UNICEF Press Centre include issues with child soldiers in Somalia, the new Executive Director, Anthony Lake, at UNICEF, the visit of Goodwill Ambassador Mia Farrow to Guinea to highlight the plight of children, financial support provided by the Japanese government to support a child-friendly environment, the launch of a polio campaign in Mauritania, the vaccination of sixty thousand Haitian children, and high forum level calls for improved targeting of aid for sanitation and water (Press Centre).
UNICEF also has a section of their website dedicated to social media such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and MySpace located at http://www.unicef.org/videoaudio/video_50646.html. These social networking sites allow UNICEF supporters to follow UNICEF current events in real time. As growing communication outlets worldwide, social networking sites have become a primary manner of connecting with organizations internationally.
UNICEF provides many invaluable resources, activities, programs, and events focused on improving the quality of life for children worldwide. UNICEF clearly describes their vision and mission in their comprehensive mission statement, which addresses everything from UNICEF goals to UNICEF basic activities. The outline of UNICEF's government and staff hierarchy is provided in this paper, along with identification of key stakeholders and their influence on organizational activities. Diversity is an innate factor of UNICEF, since disrespect of diversity is completely contradictory to UNICEF's goals and mission. UNICEF is an international collaborative mandated by the United Nations to assist children, and discrimination on any level of service is unacceptable. Many environmental trends, including political, social, economic, and technological trends, affect UNICEF on a daily basis. UNICEF uses their online Press Centre, UNICEF Television, and UNICEF Radio to keep consumers, supporters, and donors updated about UNICEF's current status, activities, and events internationally.

References
UNICEF. (2008, May 15). About UNICEF: Structure and contact information. Retrieved May 4, 2010, from UNICEF: unite for children: http://www.unicef.org/about/structure/index.html
UNICEF. (2004, August 25). About UNICEF: Who We Are. Retrieved May 4, 2010, from UNICEF: unite for children: http://www.unicef.org/about/who/index_mission.html
UNICEF. (n.d.). Press Centre. Retrieved May 4, 2010, from UNICEF: unite for children: http://www.unicef.org/media/index.html
UNICEF. (n.d.). Video/Audio. Retrieved May 4, 2010, from UNICEF: unite for children: http://www.unicef.org/videoaudio/index.html
UNICEF. (n.d.). What we do. Retrieved May 4, 2010, from UNICEF: unite for children: http://www.unicef.org/whatwedo/index.html