Latin America and the Caribbean Region 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.
Appeal highlights
- Latin America and the Caribbean remains the second most disaster-prone region in the world, with growing numbers of people affected by such disasters as storms or floods. Between the year 2000 and 2022, 190 million people were hit by disasters in the region, with an average of 8.6 million people affected each year. The combination of extreme natural events (which are more frequent due to climate change), growing displacement and migration, increasing violence and poverty and socioeconomic instability in countries in the region impacts the well-being of thousands of highly vulnerable children.
- With country offices and partners, UNICEF supports emergency preparedness efforts throughout the region, including through training, pre-positioning supplies and generating critical data. When an emergency hits, UNICEF ensures rapid activation of its humanitarian response, including by reinforcing capacities in the field.
- UNICEF appeals for $12.4 million to strengthen emergency preparedness to address compounding humanitarian situations and to respond to emerging crises.
Key statistics
1.9 million children in need of health and nutrition services
2.5 million children in need of protection services
2.3 million children in need of education support
5.9 million people in need of access to safe water
8.4 million people affected by disasters
Funding requirements for 2024
Regional needs and strategy
Humanitarian needs
With 190 million people affected by disasters between 2000 and 2022, Latin America and the Caribbean is the second most disaster-prone region in the world. Three out of ten people in the region have been affected by disasters in their communities. Between January 2022 and September 2023, 13.4 million people, including 4 million children, were affected by disasters.
In addition to the exposure to natural hazards and the effects of climate change, other risks intertwine to increase the need for enhanced preparedness, response and resilience capacities in countries in the region.
Migration through South and Central America increased substantially in 2023, overwhelming countries’ capacities. Millions of vulnerable families and children are migrating across borders or within their countries due to poverty, inequality, violence (including gender-based violence) and climate-related shocks, and because of limited access to adequate nutrition, health, water, sanitation, protection and education services.
An estimated 32 million people face multidimensional poverty in the region and would be among the most vulnerable to new shocks. Women and children are increasingly exposed to risks in countries where socioeconomic and political instability, limited humanitarian access and state fragility affect the ability of Governments and partners to respond to crises effectively.
In 2024, immediate impacts are expected related to the El Niño phenomenon. Drought in Central America and parts of South America, as well as heavy rains in the South, are expected to disrupt agricultural activities and food production, increasing levels of food insecurity and malnutrition for children in areas with already limited access to food and safe water.
Storms continue to be more frequent in the region, leaving affected people with less time to recover between events. Tropical cyclones in small island and developing states in the Caribbean are anticipated in 2024; this will challenge food security, access to income and basic services and living conditions for millions of children.
UNICEF’s strategy
UNICEF promotes strategies to address humanitarian needs while building local and regional capacities for emergency preparedness. Guided by the Core Commitments for Children in Humanitarian Action, during emergencies that may occur in countries or related to crises not covered by other humanitarian appeals in the region, UNICEF will provide timely and integrated humanitarian responses to children and the most vulnerable populations, including pregnant and breastfeeding women, people with disabilities and indigenous communities.
The Latin America and Caribbean Regional Office will provide capacity building, technical support, tools, knowledge and financial resources to ensure that country offices and partners are better prepared to rapidly and effectively design, implement, monitor and evaluate multisectoral humanitarian action at scale. UNICEF will support teams at the country level to implement UNICEF humanitarian programmes with a nexus approach. And, by generating evidence and through advocacy and technical expertise, the Regional Office will support building and strengthening national shock-responsive systems; and will also support risk analysis and data readiness. This includes enabling platforms and data analysis capacity, with the ultimate goal of informing preparedness and programming. UNICEF’s overarching and cross-sectoral commitments as well as the Grand Bargain commitments will be mainstreamed.
Considering the multiple ongoing humanitarian crises – including those related to predictable threats – and given the region's risk profile, UNICEF is collaborating with partners to increase efforts to integrate and scale up anticipatory actions in the region. This is linked with ongoing preparedness and contingency processes.
UNICEF will ensure surge capacity for rapid deployment to any country in the region when an emergency hits, along with sustained investments in humanitarian learning and development for UNICEF staff and key counterparts. UNICEF is committed to supporting evidence-based advocacy and resource mobilization, and to leveraging partnerships to support children affected by crises. UNICEF also ensures representation and leadership in sectoral and cross-cutting humanitarian coordination platforms, at the national and regional levels.
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 Latin America and the Caribbean; the strategies that we are using to respond to these situations; and the donor support that is essential in this response.
