The United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) is seeking for the sum of $3.3 Billion in emergency to assist 48 million children who are living through some of the world’s worst conflicts and other humanitarian emergencies.
The UNICEF, which launched the 2017 appeal fund today to raise the amount revealed that children in many countries, including Syria, Yemen, Iraq, South Sudan and Nigeria, are under direct attack and that their homes, schools and communities are in ruins, adding: “their hopes and futures are hanging in the balance. In total, almost one in four of the world’s children lives in a country affected by conflict or disaster.”
The UNICEF Director of Emergency Programmes, Manuel Fontaine said: “in country after country, war, natural disaster and climate change are driving ever more children from their homes, exposing them to violence, disease and exploitation.”
UNICEF’s Humanitarian Action for Children sets out the agency’s 2017 appeal totalling $3.3 billion, and its goals in providing children with access to safe water, nutrition, education, health and protection in 48 countries across the globe.
An estimated 7.5 million children will face severe acute malnutrition across the majority of appeal countries, including almost half a million each in northeast Nigeria and Yemen.
Manuel Fontaine said: “malnutrition is a silent threat to millions of children. The damage it does can be irreversible, robbing children of their mental and physical potential. In its worst form, severe malnutrition can be deadly.”
The largest single component of the appeal is for children and families caught up in the Syria conflict, soon to enter its seventh year. UNICEF is seeking a total of $1.4 billion to support Syrian children inside Syria and those living as refugees in neighbouring countries.
UNICEF said that, working alongside its partners, it’s other priorities in 2017 are:
– Providing over 19 million people with access to safe water;
– Reaching 9.2 million children with formal or non-formal basic education;
– Immunizing 8.3 million children against measles;
– Providing psychosocial support to over two million children;
– Treating 3.1 million children with severe acute malnutrition.
It announced that in the first ten months of 2016, it supported 13.6 million people with access to safe water; 9.4 million children vaccinated against measles; 6.4 million children accessed some form of education and 2.2 million children treated for severe acute malnutrition. [myad]
