MANILA, Oct. 11 (Xinhua) -- United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) renewed their commitment to fighting poverty and promoting the well-being of children and youths in Asia and the Pacific, in a memorandum of understanding signed in Bali, Indonesia on Thursday.
Under the new five-year agreement, the two organizations pledge to work together to increase access for disadvantaged children, young people and women to quality services in health, nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene, early childhood development, education, child protection and climate change.
"Children and young people living in urban slums and underserved rural communities across the Asia and Pacific region are deprived of the quality health, education, and training opportunities that could help lift them out of poverty," said Henrietta Fore, the executive director of UNICEF.
Through this agreement, Fore added that UNICEF and the ADB "will help put these children on the path to a better future and their countries on the road to sustainable development."
In South Asia, 36 percent of under-five children are stunted, and around 40 percent of children are out of secondary school in several countries in Asia and the Pacific.
Under the agreement, ADB and UNICEF will enhance their collaboration in ADB developing member countries in key areas, including policy dialogue, research, advocacy, and innovations; innovative financing solutions such as blended finance, and enhanced public-private partnerships; knowledge sharing and staff development; and collaboration in humanitarian and fragility situations affecting children and adolescents.
The Manila-based bank said the agreement builds on years of ongoing collaboration between the two organizations.
For example, it said ADB and UNICEF are helping to strengthen health systems in countries like Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam by adopting technologies to enable the exchange of interoperable health information, currently caught up in the data silos of various agencies.
The two organizations are also working together in the Pacific to introduce new vaccines against diarrhea, respiratory infection, and cervical cancer, using pooled procurement that enables better prices, the ADB said.
