United Nations Children's Fund

The United Nations Children's Fund (or UNICEF) General Assembly was created on December 11, 1946. In 1953, its name was shortened from United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, but is still known by the popular acronym based on this old name. Headquartered in New York City, UNICEF provides long-term humanitarian and developmental assistance to children and mothers in developing countries.

A partly voluntarily funded agency, UNICEF relies on contributions from governments and private donors. Its programmes emphasize developing community-level services to promote the health and well-being of children. UNICEF was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965 and Prince of Asturias Award of Concord in 2006. In the United States, Canada and some other countries, UNICEF is known for its "Trick-Or-Treat for UNICEF" program in which children collect money for UNICEF from the houses they trick-or-treat at on Halloween night, sometimes instead of candy.

Following the reaching of term limits by Executive Director of UNICEF Carol Bellamy, former United States Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman took control of the organization in May 2005 with an agenda to increase the organization's focus on the Millennium Development Goals. Total income to UNICEF for 2006 was $2,781 million.