Celebrating the international Children's Day
Healthy and educated children and young people are an opportunity for increasing their country's economic growth. That is why children's rights, such as health, education and social protection, as well as combating discrimination, child labour and human trafficking, are at the heart of EU's Development Policy. Over the last decade, thanks to EU funding, almost 14 million pupils could go to primary school, 18.3 million children under one year were immunised against measles, and over 7.5 million births were attended by skilled health workers, saving the lives of mothers and babies.
Some concrete examples of the EU's development work to support children and youth affected by conflict include a project to address the needs of the vulnerable children and young people in five provinces of Afghanistan 
; one to strengthen the juvenile justice system in Yemen; or another on HIV/AIDS prevention in Myanmar .
Also, displaced Syrian children excluded from education are being assisted by a 10 million EU programme. Implemented through UNICEF, its objective is to provide 5500 vulnerable Syrian and Jordanian children in 39 schools across Jordan with access to free formal education and other relevant education services, along with those in host communities in Jordan.
At the occasion of the International Children's Day, Pakistani education activist Malala Yousafzai will collect the 2013 Sakharov Prize at the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
