ABSTRACT
UNICEFs urban programme experience began in the late 1960s, and evolved by the 1970s into the Urban Basic Services (UBS) strategy, in more than 40 countries. During the last decade, UNICEF assistance to children and women in urban areas was expressed in various ways: support for national, centrally designed and sectoral services in urban areas such as Universal Child Immunization (UCI) and Oral Rehydration Therapy (ORT) drives; continued support for subnational, participatory and intersectoral Urban Basic Services programmes; greatly expanded efforts in favour of working and street children; country specific studies and assessments; and advocacy on macro-economic issues affecting the urban poor, as for example, Adjustment With a Human Face. In the 1980s, following the Alma Ata Primary Health Care (PHC) conference, UNICEF collaborated with WHO in sponsoring two interregional meetings on Urban Primary Health Care. Urban Basic Services is more than the sum of its parts. Its mutually reinforcing sectoral interventions are driven by objectives.
