UAE plans children's health database

The country is to compile statistics with the help of Unicef to address any problems.

The UAE will for the first time compile statistics about the lives of children with the help of Unicef, the UN children's fund. The statistics, which will cover such things as infant mortality, health, poverty and education, will be compiled in a database by 2011. The database will be used by policymakers to assess the status of the nation's children. It will help them better understand the state of child development and make plans to address problems that are specific to the UAE. The statistics will cover both Emiratis and foreign residents. The UAE General Women's Union will take the lead in the partnership with Unicef. Dr Mohammed Mansour, a consultant with the Women's Union, said the UN agency would provide the skills to collect the statistics and set up the database. "There is a great need for the country to acquire benchmarks that we can use in order to help us with taking a real stand on issues involving children's rights, and one of the first key steps is establishing such a database," Mr Mansour said. Representatives of the Women's Union and Unicef are working with government ministries in each emirate to set up data collection. Mutasem Mohammad, a consultant to Unicef, said it was important for each government office to assign a representative to deal with project workers. Mr Mohammad, who headed a similar project in Saudi Arabia and helped establish a database in Syria, said the database was crucial because "planning and strategies must be built on real data". The statistics from the project will be available through DevInfo, a database program that Unicef uses to compile and disseminate data on human development. There are plans to make the statistics available online. If the two-year project is successful, Mr Mohammed said, a more comprehensive database would be established with statistics on matters relating to women and families, as well as data regarding the UN's Millennium Development Goals for universal education, gender equality and health, among other things. The UAE is signatory to the United Nations International Convention on the Rights of the Child, which guarantees "the full range of human rights - civil, cultural, economic, political and social" - to children. The UAE, however, has expressed reservations over some provisions of the convention, such as one that guarantees children the freedom to choose their religion, and another that states that children have the right to acquire a nationality at birth. The Government has said acquisition of nationality is an internal matter. It said it would follow the provision on religion as long as it does not conflict with Islamic law. [e-mail]