Celebrating UNICEF's 50th anniversary in 1996, Children First examines changes in public attitudes and government policies which have put children at the top of the international agenda in the 1990s. Starting from the International Year of the Child in 1979, development historian Maggie Black studies the two movements which have done most to raise the visibility of children in the public consciousness: - the child survival campaign, which culminated in the 1990 World Summit for Children - the movement for children's rights, which resulted in the 1989 International Convention on the Rights of the Child, now ratified by 177 countries.Children First explores what brought these two movements such unprecedented success, and asks: Is this new found concern for the world's children likely to last?