Cameroon 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.
Cameroon snapshot
Appeal highlights
- In Cameroon, 4.7 million people (including 2.5 million children, 2.4 million women and 705,000 people with disabilities) urgently require humanitarian assistance due complex and multifaceted crises: armed conflict causing internal and cross-border displacement, intercommunal violence, disease outbreaks (including cholera and measles) and seasonal flooding.
- UNICEF will enhance localization and accountability efforts in its humanitarian response, enhance emergency preparedness, expand its field presence and prioritize gender equality, including through scaled up response to gender-based violence and protection from sexual exploitation and abuse. By adopting a targeted and multisectoral approach, UNICEF and partners will effectively address diverse needs.
- UNICEF requires $64.6 million to reach nearly 949,000 vulnerable people, including nearly 747,000 children. UNICEF will support measles vaccination, access to education services, treatment for malnutrition, including severe wasting, and psychosocial support services. The highest levels of resources will be dedicated to interventions in child protection, nutrition and WASH.
Key planned targets
111,817 children with severe wasting admitted for treatment
341,000 children/caregivers accessing community-based mental health and psychosocial support
556,304 children accessing formal or non-formal education, including early learning
140,000 people accessing a sufficient quantity and quality of water
Funding requirements for 2024
Country needs and strategy
Humanitarian needs
The people of Cameroon continue to grapple with difficult conditions emerging from conflict in the Lake Chad Basin, an influx of refugees from the Central African Republic and ongoing tensions in Cameroon's North-West and South-West Regions. The Far North Region continues to be affected by natural disasters and conflict, with 246 attacks reported between January and July 2023. As of June 2023, Cameroon was sheltering more than 1 million internally displaced people, 646,000 returnees and 480,000 refugees from the Central African Republic and Nigeria. In addition, floods in Chad forced more than 2,400 people to seek refuge in Cameroon. Flooding and landslides in Cameroon's North-West and South-West Regions also impacted thousands of families in Limbé and Buea.
The health system in Cameroon faces an uphill battle against outbreaks of cholera, mpox and polio, primarily in West, Littoral, Far North, North-West and South-West Regions. Insufficient access to clean water, sanitation and health services for about 1.8 million people – including 918,000 children – has fueled the cholera outbreaks (more than 20,204 reported cases and 481 fatalities as of August 2023) especially in urban and peri-urban centres with inadequate waste management and urban crowding. With nearly 99 health districts out of 189 dealing with an active measles epidemic and about 18 per cent of health facilities non-operational, mobile clinics are stepping in. These clinics, however, grapple with limited resources and threats as they seek to serve about 1.8 million people in need of health assistance. An assessment of the nutrition situation in four regions showed a deterioration for children aged 6–59 months compared with 2021 (with levels of wasting at 8.0 per cent in Far North Region, 6.9 per cent in North Region, 6.6 per cent in Adamawa Region and 3.9 per cent in East Region).
Approximately 1.4 million school-aged children need support for education in emergency contexts. This includes 366,654 internally displaced children in Far North Region and 367,000 in North-West and South-West Regions. Around 1.2 million children need protection services. Overall, the crises unfolding in Cameroon have heightened risks of gender-based violence and are leading to grave violations of children's rights. In 2022 (the latest year for which complete data are available), the United Nations verified 156 grave violations against 111 children (47 boys, 58 girls, 6 sex unknown).
Humanitarian actors persist in addressing the diverse needs of crisis-affected people in Cameroon. However, security threats, inadequate infrastructure, bureaucratic impediments and significant funding gaps have created barriers to reaching children and families in need.
UNICEF’s strategy
UNICEF's strategy, aligned with the inter-agency Humanitarian Needs Overview and Humanitarian Response Plan, navigates Cameroon’s multifaceted humanitarian landscape. Prioritiy areas include North-West, South-West, East and Far North Regions. UNICEF has a co-leadership role in the localization strategy in Cameroon, and is enhancing its presence in the field to accurately identify and assist those directly impacted, especially in insecure and remote locations.
This approach will promote a gender-transformative response, enhancing partners' capabilities in gender-sensitive analysis and preventing gender-based violence and sexual exploitation. UNICEF will continue to involve affected populations in determining their needs and focus on delivery mechanisms that promote dignity, such as humanitarian cash transfers.
UNICEF will enhance its disaster response capacities, prioritizing emergency preparedness and investing in resilience against shocks. Support will extend to the national social protection system, with UNICEF providing technical assistance to construct a shock-responsive system, including humanitarian cash transfers and critical links between social protection and emergency platforms.
UNICEF will actively work to mitigate malnutrition by providing quality treatment for children affected by severe wasting. Using a multisectoral approach, UNICEF will scale up interventions to increase breastfeeding rates for infants aged 0–5 months and expand dietary diversity for children aged 6–23 months. This work will harness health, food, education and social protection platforms to improve children's nutritional status and decrease the need for emergency treatment.
UNICEF will rehabilitate and reinforce water and sanitation infrastructure in Cameroon to address critical needs and enhance disaster response capacity, benefiting in particular marginalized groups, including rural women and girls.
UNICEF's education strategy will promote quality teaching in accessible areas and emphasize non-formal education where access to formal education is limited. UNICEF will promote a protective learning environment that adheres to the Safe Schools Declaration, especially for vulnerable and disabled children. Leveraging the decentralization process, UNICEF will intensify the collaboration of the WASH, health, child protection and mental health and psychosocial support sectors. This holistic response will address the comprehensive needs of students, teachers and community facilitators.
UNICEF will continue to lead the education, WASH, nutrition and child protection sectors, harmonizing standard operational procedures for the Child Protection Information Management System. UNICEF is a critical player in sectoral working groups and in piloting common approaches with UNHCR (in East Region); UNICEF also participates in the National Humanitarian–Development–Peace Nexus task force. While responding to current crises, UNICEF will strategically invest in preventing future crises, helping to create sustainable, resilient systems.
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 Cameroon; the strategies that we are using to respond to these situations; and the donor support that is essential in this response.