Haiti 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.
Haiti snapshot
Appeal highlights
- Haitians are facing some of the worst human rights violations and threats to their lives in the country’s recent history. The result has been chronic and acute humanitarian needs, including unprecedented levels of gender-based violence. Prolonged political turmoil, disease outbreaks, disasters and escalating armed violence persist, resulting in 3 million children requiring humanitarian assistance, a number that could grow if new shocks hit.
- In 2024, UNICEF is scaling up its response by providing support to the Government, through access to and continuity of basic services, while also contributing to humanitarian–development–peacebuilding nexus strategies. UNICEF provides water, sanitation and hygiene, education, health, nutrition, child protection, gender-based violence and social protection services; supports cholera rapid-response teams; and maintains disaster risk reduction and emergency preparedness activities.
- Timely, flexible funding is essential for UNICEF to reach the most vulnerable, crisis-affected children. UNICEF requires $221.7 million to meet humanitarian needs in Haiti in 2024.
Key planned targets
652,400 children and women accessing primary health care
448,743 children, youth, parents and community leaders sensitized on recruitment and use of children by armed groups
502,123 children accessing formal or non-formal education, including early learning
884,000 people accessing a sufficient quantity and quality of water
Funding requirements for 2024
Country needs and strategy
Humanitarian needs
After two years of continuous crisis in Haiti and repeated calls for the intervention of an international force, the Security Council approved the deployment of a security mission to Haiti through Resolution 2699 in October 2023. The Multinational Security Support mission is mandated to support the restoration of security and pave the way for democratic elections. While the force is expected in the first quarter of 2024, protection concerns about such a force are already being considered. And urban populations are still trapped by armed violence, families are displaced due to conflicts, marginalized communities outside the capital suffer from food insecurity and repatriated migrants face numerous challenges. By 2024, approximately 5.5 million Haitians will be dependent on humanitarian protection and assistance.
In Haiti, at least 200,000 people are internally displaced, with 25 per cent living in spontaneous sites and 75 per cent in host communities. This includes many unaccompanied children who are exposed to abuse, exploitation and violence. An ongoing cholera epidemic is aggravating existing disparities and further heightening the vulnerability of already marginalized populations: As of September 2023, more than 64,400 suspected cases had been reported, almost half of them among children under the age of 14 years. The health-care system remains challenged by limited human resources that strain the running of public health facilities. And precarious sanitation conditions and limited access to drinking water open the way for waterborne diseases.
Armed group activity in and around schools has further reduced access to education, exposing children to an increasing risk of being recruited by armed groups or being the victim of social exclusion and gender-based violence, particularly sexual and physical abuse. Approximately 3.4 million people require water and sanitation, more than 1.6 million people need emergency protection services, more than 100,000 children under age 5 require treatment for severe wasting and 1.2 million children will require support to access education in 2024.
The southern part of the country, which is particularly vulnerable to natural hazards, is experiencing a new crisis as increasing numbers of internally displaced persons arrive in the area after fleeing violence in the capital. Meanwhile, northern Haiti is facing growing spillover effects of conflict and cholera, with reported expansions of armed groups, an increasing number of internally displaced persons and a rise in suspected cholera cases.
Haiti must also begin investing in recovery readiness, because responding to the complex needs of the affected populations will require a comprehensive, multisectoral approach, beyond immediate life-saving aid, to support recovery and resilience.
UNICEF’s strategy
In 2024, UNICEF will maintain its focus on immediate humanitarian life-saving responses and contribute to nexus strategies where possible. Interventions will be tailored to theneeds of specific population groups: those living in areas directly affected by armed violence, those who are internally displaced, repatriated migrants and border communities and other populations with acute emergency needs.
In areas affected by armed violence, UNICEF has invested in humanitarian access capacity to provide emergency basic services while promoting community engagement and social cohesion. UNICEF is strengthening service provision in reachable safe spaces while assisting people who are internally displaced with supplies, through mobile teams, and with protection and education activities and referrals to health services for complicated medical cases. UNICEF is also responding to needs in communes where social service systems are limited and likely to collapse, including through increased support to teachers, doctors, social workers and health workers. Along the border, unaccompanied children and families are supported.
UNICEF is expanding access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene services through trucking, household water treatment, rehabilitation of infrastructure, waste disposal, hygiene promotion and supplies. The cholera response uses the case area targeted intervention approach, community awareness-raising, a WASH shield response and support to treatment centres. UNICEF supports access to maternal and child health care services and immunization and reinforces health supply chain management. UNICEF has scaled up screening and treatment for severe wasting, promotion of infant and young child feeding practices and vitamin A supplementation. Education is a gateway to strengthen social cohesion and child protection and promote peacebuilding. UNICEF promotes safe access to learning by providing school supplies, disaster-risk management and psychosocial support; while also supporting the national social protection system through humanitarian cash transfers meant to improve access to basic services.
Protecting children exposed to violence, exploitation and family separation is a priority. Specialized services, gender-based violence risk mitigation and response, psychosocial support and community-based structures provide care and referrals to victims of violence and to children associated with armed groups. Other priorities include contingency planning, and mainstreaming gender equality and protection from sexual exploitation and abuse through awareness-raising materials, reporting channels and reinforced accountability mechanisms. Gender analysis and engaging with women-led organizations inform the response.
The UNICEF Executive Director, as the Principal Advocate for Haiti for the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, is engaging with the Haitian Government, Haitian civil society, international partners and other actors to enhance access for safe, dignified and predictable humanitarian assistance and protection for children and their families.
Supporting government coordination, UNICEF co-leads the Education and Nutrition Clusters, the Child Protection Sub-Cluster and the WASH sector. UNICEF co-leads the cholera response with the Government, the World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organization.
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 Haiti; the strategies that we are using to respond to these situations; and the donor support that is essential in this response.