The 2005 Children’s World Summit for the Environment will take place this July in Aichi, Japan during Expo 2005.
An estimated 1,000 people — children aged between 10 and 14 years old, together with their parents and chaperones — from about 100 countries, are expected to take part.
The Summit, organized by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and hosted by the Japan Organizing Committee (JOC), will focus on energy, recycling, water, forests and biodiversity.
Projects by children that relate to the themes will be presented and discussed during the plenary alongside workshops and field trips.
The event, taking place between 26 and 29 July, will also give the children a chance to take part in environmental activities at Expo 2005 and visit environmental exhibits.
Said UNEP’s Executive Director: “Children are the future and that future must be a sustainable one. Otherwise, we shall fail as adults in our responsibility to hand over a world fit for these children to live in. Children can play a pivotal role in reminding us of our responsibilities and seeing beyond the day to day, sometimes petty, distractions that can put us off course.
“We need partnerships to deliver a healthier, fairer and more environmentally-friendly world. Among those partnerships must be one between adults and children and between children in their own countries and between children in countries across the globe.”
The chairperson of JOC, Fumio Kawaguchi, added: “The theme of Expo 2005 is ‘Nature’s Wisdom’. Usually, one associates the notion of ‘wisdom’ with old age and experience, but I think all of us can accept that there is such a thing as the wisdom of childhood, as well. A child has a clearer, simpler view of the world, a view which has not yet been tainted by the realism, some would say cynicism, of adulthood.
“These two different aspects of wisdom are embodied in the mascots we chose to represent Expo 2005: Morizo, the Forest Grandfather and Kiccoro, the Forest Child. I look forward to welcoming many ‘Forest Children’ from around the globe to Aichi this summer!”
The Children’s World Summit is a follow-up to the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, in Johannesburg, South Africa.
The Summit will help to increase children’s understanding of environmental issues by letting them share experiences and opinions, give them an opportunity to collectively voice their concerns for the environment and inspire them to initiate and implement community environmental projects. — Samina Iqbal
Healthier diets
The combination of underweight in children and overweight in adults, in the same family, is a new phenomenon in developing countries undergoing nutritional transition. This was stated in a recent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. The changes in diet, food availability and lifestyle are the responsible factors. In middle income countries (GNP $3000), the poor are associated with a higher risk of obesity. In countries with a still lower GNP, there is scarcity of food and more manual labour, both protecting against overweight. In the urbanized settings, there is availability of cheap energy dense foods from street vendors and fast food restaurants that facilitate the consumption of more calories. Widespread access to television further reduces energy expenditure. Also women join the labour force and have less time to prepare food at home thus relying on commercially prepared foods for the whole family.
In the wealthier segments of this society, these effects are counterbalanced by better education on health and nutrition, sufficient funds to purchase healthier foods and access to physical fitness programmes. The underweight-overweight paradox will continue to increase, since it is predicted that the population growth in the next 30 years will occur in urban areas of developing countries.
As 50 per cent of the family’s income in developing countries is spent on food, low cost vegetable oils are mass produced from industrialized countries. These greatly increase the fat calories in diet.
Improving the obesogenic environment in urban areas of developing countries is challenging as it requires monitoring the food market and facilitating healthy eating and physical activity. — Dr Fatema Jawad
