Sudan Appeal
Humanitarian Action for Children
UNICEF’s Humanitarian Action for Children appeal helps support the agency’s work as it provides conflict- and disaster-affected children with access to water, sanitation, nutrition, education, health and protection services. Return to main appeal page.
Sudan snapshot
Appeal highlights
- The conflict in the Sudan is a children’s crisis: 13.6 million children urgently need humanitarian assistance. Six million people, more than half of whom are children, have fled their homes, and the Sudan is now home to the largest child displacement crisis in the world.
- The cost of inaction is unacceptably high: more than 700,000 children with severe wasting are at high risk of not surviving without treatment; 1.7 million children under age 1 risk missing life-saving vaccinations to protect them from diseases; a generation of children will miss out on education; and millions will lack safety and psychosocial well-being.
- Despite challenges in reaching populations and meeting their needs, UNICEF is staying and delivering for children in the Sudan through a three-pronged strategy: 1) in conflict hotspots – delivering critical and life-saving supplies and services; 2) in states receiving large numbers of displaced persons – providing urgent assistance to displaced and host communities; and 3) across the country – supporting the preservation of systems that deliver basic services.
- UNICEF requires $840 million to deliver a package of child protection, education, health, nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and cash plus interventions to save children's lives, alleviate their suffering and preserve their dignity.
Key planned targets
3 million children and women accessing primary health care
540,000 children with severe wasting admitted for treatment
1.7 million children accessing formal or non-formal education, including early learning
5 million people accessing a sufficient quantity and quality of water
Funding requirements for 2024
Country needs and strategy
Humanitarian needs
The conflict in the Sudan has left 24.8 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, including 13.6 million children. A staggering 6 million people are on the move, of whom more than 1 million crossed borders in search for safety. The displaced population includes more than 3 million children, making the country home to the largest child displacement crisis in the world. The country already had 3.7 million internally displaced persons prior to the crisis that has unfolded since April 2023, and hosts around 1 million refugees.
The health system in the Sudan is on the brink of collapse: an estimated 70 per cent of health facilities in conflict-affected areas are not functional. UNICEF is particularly worried about the youngest children, including the 1.5 million babies who will be born in the country in the coming year. With many pregnant women trapped in areas of heavy fighting, and others living in overcrowded sites for displaced people or with host communities who are stretched to their limits, tens of thousands of children under 5 years of age might not survive if they cannot access critical health-care services in time.
The Sudan has one of the highest rates of child malnutrition globally. More than 3.5 million children are wasted, of whom more than 700,000 are expected to be severely wasted – and at increased risk of death without timely treatment – in 2024. The nutrition situation is expected to deteriorate given continued fighting, the impact of the lean season and rising food prices.
Most regions in the Sudan must cope with critical levels of water scarcity. As a result, nearly one third of the population (including 7.4 million children) lacks access to water, while two thirds lacks access to sanitation and hygiene services. Many facilities that provide water have been destroyed or damaged, lack water treatment supplies or are inaccessible for repairs and maintenance due to insecurity. WASH-related diseases, mainly diarrhoea and cholera, are putting the lives of 3.5 million children at risk.
In the Sudan, the right to education of 19 million children is at stake. Without urgent action, the learning crisis will become a generational catastrophe. This generation's learning and earning loss is estimated to be $26 billion per year. Millions of Sudanese children not learning is disastrous for their safety and well-being, engendering such child protection risks as child labour, child marriage and recruitment by armed groups and forces, which are on the rise.
The consequences for children living in this context are dire: 1 out of 18 children will not reach their fifth birthday. Of those that do, the future of many will be irreversibly compromised.
UNICEF’s strategy
UNICEF is staying and delivering for the children of the Sudan. The strategy is three-pronged: 1) in conflict hotspots – delivering life-saving supplies and services; 2) in states receiving large numbers of displaced persons – providing urgent assistance to displaced and host communities; and 3) across the country – supporting the preservation of systems that deliver basic services. UNICEF expects to reach 9.9 million people, including 7.6 million children.
Humanitarian access to the affected populations due to insecurity and limited capacity on the ground remains a key challenge in scaling up the life-saving emergency response, especially in hotspot areas including Khartoum State and the Kordofan and Darfur regions. UNICEF is advocating for access to populations in need and working strategically to access people affected by the violence and upheaval to provide life-saving assistance. Given the situation in Darfur and the lack of access, for example, UNICEF teams in the Sudan deployed a small team to Chad to coordinate with colleagues there and lead UNICEF cross-border operations to response to the needs of internally displaced people in Darfur. UNICEF is also paying incentives to critical front-line workers (doctors, nurses, teachers and social workers) – whose salaries have not been paid for months – to prevent a system collapse that would have a devastating impact on children's survival and well-being.
UNICEF leads the Education, Nutrition and WASH clusters and the child protection subcluster and plays a key role in the Health Cluster, the gender-based violence subcluster and the refugee consultation forum. On behalf of the clusters, UNICEF procures and manages the pipeline of core life-saving supplies for treating severe wasting (e.g., ready-to-use therapeutic food), immunization (routine vaccines), maternal and child health (medicines and medical equipment) and emergency WASH supplies.
Life-saving interventions will be prioritized, including access to primary health care and vaccinations against deadly childhood diseases. UNICEF will focus on children in their first 1,000 days of life by providing cash to pregnant women and new mothers combined with an integrated package of basic services. This gender-responsive mother and child cash transfer 'plus' programme (MCCT+) is a core element of resilience programming. It demonstrably saves lives and empowers women in a sustainable way. UNICEF will target 5 million people with access to safe water, appropriate sanitation and hygiene and handwashing services.
Children with severe wasting are at extreme risk and must be prioritized for treatment. Therefore, UNICEF – as provider of last resort and the sole provider of life-saving ready-to-use therapeutic food – aims to reach 540,000 children with such treatment in 2024. In line with the recognized ‘simplified approach’, UNICEF will treat all severe wasting cases until children are sufficiently recovered and scale up preventive nutrition interventions.
UNICEF aims to reach conflict-affected children on the move with integrated learning, skill development and protection assistance. The Makanaa ‘our space’ approach provides a place where children can learn, play and heal in safe (learning) spaces while accessing an integrated package of support and referral services. Besides psychosocial support, these encompass family tracing and reunification for unaccompanied and separated children, prevention of and response to gender-based violence and mine risk education.
UNICEF is continuing to support social systems, localization and mutual aid through enhanced community-based and community-led interventions to expand reach and sustainability and strengthen engagement and accountability to affected populations. Implementation of programmes is risk-informed and conflict-sensitive, aligned with the 'do no harm' approach.
Programme targets
Find out more about UNICEF's work
Highlights
Humanitarian Action is at the core of UNICEF’s mandate to realize the rights of every child. This edition of Humanitarian Action for Children – UNICEF’s annual humanitarian fundraising appeal – describes the ongoing crises affecting children in Sudan; the strategies that we are using to respond to these situations; and the donor support that is essential in this response.