UNICEF’s evolution over six and a half decades has established a record of performance with major implications for global governance in the twenty-first century. At the time of writing, global governance is often seen as a lost cause, an idealistic dream but hardly a realistic one. The major powers of the West are preoccupied with their internal problems and austerity, cutting back on government expenditure and unwilling to think much about international support for global innovations. China and the other rising nations of the South are still growing, though perhaps more slowly, preoccupied with maintaining their advance without endangering their progression with new global initiatives. Global politics, in the phrase of Ian Goldin, “is

gridlocked.”2 Or in the words of Mark Mazower, “The idea of governing the world is becoming yesterday’s dream.”3