Sir Roger Moore

© UNICEF video

Sir Roger Moore, the popular British film, television and stage actor, is perhaps best known for his role as secret agent 007, James Bond. With his appointment as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador on 9 August 1991, Sir Roger embarked on a new mission.

"My curiosity got the better of me after Audrey Hepburn introduced me to UNICEF," says Sir Roger, explaining the origins of his association with the organization. "I wanted to find out more than just the facts and figures."

Action role

He set about this almost immediately, departing on an advocacy mission to projects in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. A mission to Brazil followed in September 1991.

A 1996 mission took him to the Philippines and in 1997 he visited programmes in Brazil and helped inaugurate the ‘Check Out for Children’ initiative of Sheraton Hotels and Resorts, a fund-raising alliance that has raised more than US$4 million for UNICEF. Sir Roger has subsequently visited and promoted projects in Mexico, Slovenia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Ghana, Indonesia, Japan and Korea.

In November 2001, Sir Roger helped launch a new alliance between world soccer governing body, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) and UNICEF. He points to a scheme in Kenya as an example of the alliance's innovative work. "Football is being used as a language in that project," he explains. "The vital message being communicated to the boys and young men is about safe sex, the use of condoms and preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS."