In December, 1946, the United Nations General Assembly voted to approve an International Children’s Emergency Fund that would provide relief assistance to children and their mothers whose lives had been disrupted by World War II in Europe and China. Begun as a temporary operation meant to last only until 1950, the organization, which later became the United Nations Children’s Fund, or UNICEF, went far beyond its original mandate and established programs throughout the world. Because it had become an indispensable provider of basic needs to disadvantaged children and mothers, it lobbied for and received approval from the General Assembly to become a permanent UN agency in 1953.
The story of UNICEF’s founding and quest for permanent status reveals much about the postwar world. As a relief organization, it struggled with where, how, and to whom to provide aid. As an international body, it wrestled with the debates that ensued as a result of Cold War politics. Its status as an apolitical philanthropic organization provides a unique perspective from which to forge links between the political, economic and social histories of the postwar period.