Chad 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.
Chad snapshot
Appeal highlights
- Protracted and rapid-onset multidimensional crises, aggravated by climate change, have created a challenging humanitarian situation for the people of Chad, and 7.6 million people will need humanitarian assistance in 2024. Among the recent crises has been the large influx of Sudanese refugees and Chadian returnees since April 2023. Chad hosts around half of all refugees in West and Central Africa (1 million out of 2.2 million).
- In 2024, UNICEF will continue to promote greater accountability to affected populations to reach the most vulnerable children and women including refugees, returnees and host communities. UNICEF will also continue to lead/co-lead the Education, Nutrition, Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Clusters and Child Protection Area of Responsibility, providing effective coordination of the humanitarian response with the Government and other humanitarian partners.
- UNICEF requires $137.2 million to help vulnerable children and women in Chad through interventions focusing on nutrition, education, protection from violence, and WASH.
Key planned targets
416,000 children with severe wasting admitted for treatment
65,000 children/caregivers accessing community-based mental health and psychosocial support
288,000 children receiving individual learning materials
340,000 people accessing a sufficient quantity and quality of water
Funding requirements for 2024
Country needs and strategy
Humanitarian needs
The difficult humanitarian circumstances in Chad are caused by continued population displacements due to conflict, natural disasters, persistent food insecurity, high rates of malnutrition, economic crisis and political instability. The result is a prolonged multidimensional crisis, exacerbated by climate change.
Chad ranks 190 of 191 countries in the Human Development Index and is the second worst country in the world for child exposure to climate change. Children make up 57 per cent of the country's 18 million people, and 50 per cent of children are affected by multidimensional poverty.
Chad hosts around half of the refugees in the West and Central Africa region (1 million of 2.2 million), and since April 2023 the country has also experienced a large inlux of Sudanese refugees and Chadian returnees. There are 215,928 internally displaced persons and 100,543 returnees. Most internally displaced people are in Lac Region, and most of the refugees in the country live in eastern Chad.
The nutritional situation remains alarming in Chad. The 2022 SMART (Standardized Monitoring and Assessment of Relief and Transitions) survey found a prevalence of global acute malnutrition in children under age 5 years of 8.6 per cent, and the prevalence of severe wasting is 1.5 per cent. An estimated 2.1 million children aged 6–59 months suffer from wasting and require treatment.
Access to quality education services for children in humanitarian situations across Chad is challenging, and the Humanitarian Response Plan estimates 1.4 million children in emergency situations will need education services.
Many children – including displaced, refugee, returnee and host community children – are extremely vulnerable to such protection violations as physical and sexual violence, exploitation and recruitment by non-state armed groups. These are only a few of the factors that lead to high levels of psychosocial distress among the country's children.
Measles outbreaks linked to low vaccination coverage persist in several provinces of Chad, and the risk of a nationwide measles epidemic remains high. Limited access to water services ( 61.8 per cent ) and sanitation (12 per cent) severely impacts people's health and nutrition status. The situation is alarming in Ouaddaï Region in eastern Chad, which hosts 70 per cent of the Sudanese refugee population as well as Chadian returnees. The Humanitarian Response Plan estimates that only 26 per cent of households in this region have access to an improved water source and 14 per cent to an improved sanitation system. Overall, unsafe water is still causing a high death toll in Chad.
UNICEF’s strategy
The UNICEF strategy for its humanitarian response in Chad is laid out in the country programme document 2024–2026, and it aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework 2024–2026 and the revised Humanitarian Response Plan 2023.
Through both humanitarian and development work, UNICEF will facilitate access to inclusive and resilient basic social services and will strengthen the capacity of the national and subnational authorities to prepare for and respond to emergencies. UNICEF will ensure multisector and localized humanitarian programming in line with the humanitarian–development–peace nexus approach.
UNICEF will continue to address the needs of refugees, returnees and host communities. No one will be left behind. UNICEF will focus its response on eastern and southern Chad, as well as Lac Region.
Wherever possible, UNICEF will consider humanitarian cash transfers in its interventions and seek to reinforce the shock-responsiveness of social protection systems to support community resilience. Community engagement and social and behaviour change will be critical approaches, and UNICEF will also establish safe and accessible complaints and feedback mechanisms and include affected populations in programme decision-making processes through a strong accountability to affected populations approach.
UNICEF will roll out vaccination campaigns for vaccine-preventable, epidemic-prone diseases, including measles. To reduce the risks of waterborne diseases, UNICEF will respond to crises by providing access to safe drinking water and sanitation. UNICEF will also support HIV/AIDS screenings and treatment to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV. To address the critical nutrition situation in Chad, UNICEF will provide counselling and support for quality infant and young child feeding practices, including breastfeeding for children aged 0–5 months and vitamin A supplementation. UNICEF will continue to supply ready-to-use therapeutic food to treat children suffering from severe wasting across the country.
UNICEF will supply school materials and provide access to a gender-sensitive and inclusive formal/non-formal education to all children in humanitarian situations, whether they are refugees, returnees or host community members.
UNICEF will ensure that the mental health and psychosocial support needs of children, adolescents and caregivers are identified and addressed through coordinated multisectoral and community-based services. A timely, quality and multisectoral response will address gender-based violence. UNICEF will support child protection case management using a coordinated multisector response and will reinforce its interventions around protection from sexual exploitation and abuse.
Pre-positioning of non-food items is part of its preparedness planning in Chad, and UNICEF will distribute these items as needed.
UNICEF will continue to lead the Nutrition, Education and WASH Clusters and the Child Protection Area of Responsibility.
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 Chad; the strategies that we are using to respond to these situations; and the donor support that is essential in this response.