Mali 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.
Mali snapshot
Appeal highlights
- Mali is experiencing unprecedented and rising humanitarian needs. An estimated 8.8 million people, more than 40 per cent of the population, are projected to be in need of humanitarian assistance in 2024. Increasing political tensions have been undermining the 2015 Algiers Peace Agreement.
- The departure of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali (MINUSMA) is expected to be completed by 31 December 2023, and this has impacted conflict dynamics and resulted in fresh hostilities. Adapting to new operational and programmatic challenges, UNICEF, in support of the Government of Mali, has been strengthening its presence on the ground, focusing on continued basic social service delivery at local levels while strengthening national systems.
- UNICEF requires $133.5 million to address the immediate critical needs of the 3.3 million most vulnerable girls and boys in Mali, to support their rights to basic social services.
Key planned targets
2.2 million children vaccinated against measles
201,250 children with severe wasting admitted for treatment
300,000 children accessing formal or non-formal education, including early learning
523,500 people accessing a sufficient quantity and quality of water
Funding requirements for 2024
Country needs and strategy
Humanitarian needs
Mali is witnessing an unprecedented escalation of conflict and violence. Attacks against civilians have been increasing in northern and central Mali. The departure of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali started on 1 July 2023 and is continuing up to 31 December 2023. Since August 2023, non-state armed groups have created siege-like conditions in several towns in the regions of Timbuktu, Gao and Ménaka by blocking main supply routes. The deterioration and spread of the conflict, including the entry of new armed actors into hostilities, is expected to lead to serious humanitarian consequences if it continues. Also of concern is the diminishing presence of non-governmental organizations in some areas due to insecurity and operational restrictions.
The combined impact of climate-related risks, persistent political and socioeconomic crisis (heightened by inflation in the prices of certain food products), insecurity and internal displacement is affecting the most vulnerable people. An estimated 2.3 million people in Mali were food insecure in 2023 and an estimated 275,700 children suffered from severe wasting. More than 2,500 people face catastrophic levels of food insecurity (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) phase 5) in Ménaka, while 76,000 people there are experiencing emergency levels of hunger (IPC phase 4). Nearly 5.1 million people required emergency health care in 2023, among them 3.2 million children. Routine vaccination coverage (DPT3) among children in Mali stands at 77 per cent. The country has experienced periodic epidemics of polio and dengue fever, and cases of measles have been reported in 32 of the country's 75 health districts in 2023.
Children's access to education in Mali is precarious, with 1,545 schools reported closed as of June 2023 due to insecurity and attacks on educational infrastructure and staff. This deprived more than 460,000 children of access to learning and affected more than 9,200 teachers. Children continue to be exposed to protection risks including family separation, gender-based violence and recruitment into armed forces/armed groups, leading to dire consequences on all dimensions of their lives including on their mental health and development. From January to March 2023, 260 grave violations against children were verified, mostly in Timbuktu, Gao, Ménaka and Kidal Regions. Women and children are also at risk of sexual exploitation and abuse.
The Children’s Climate Risk Index rating for Mali placed the country in the high-risk category, and the impact of climate change (drought, floods) makes crises more common and harder to recover from. An estimated 3.2 million people, including 1.7 million children, lack access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities.
UNICEF’s strategy
In 2024, UNICEF will be a crucial first responder in Mali. A timely, integrated life-saving and life-sustaining response will address the acute needs of children affected by conflict and natural disasters, ensuring these children are able to hold the Government and humanitarian actors, including UNICEF, to account for promoting and protecting their rights and generating effective results for them.
UNICEF will implement preparedness activities, with a focus on strengthening national and local-level capacity for effective, principled and timely response. Emphasis will be on reinforcing partnerships with national and international non-governmental organizations and local actors to enable increased humanitarian access and ensure community acceptance. UNICEF will closely collaborate with United Nations agencies to stay and deliver for Mali's children, and will continue to lead the WASH, Education, Nutrition Clusters and the Child Protection Area of Responsibility.
The diverse and complex needs of children and adolescents will be addressed, with a specific attention to children affected by armed conflict and displacement through such dedicated interventions as holistic care, family reunification, socioeconomic reintegration and mental health and psychosocial support. UNICEF will collaborate closely with communities to identify suitable locations and support community-based agents to ensure they are equipped to meet children's needs. Finally, due to withdrawal f rom Mali of the United Nations peacekeeping mission, and the temporary suspension of the activities of the United Nations Mine Action Service, UNICEF will scale up its activities in mine risk education.
To save the lives of children under 5 years of age who are severely wasted, UNICEF's nutrition response will support early detection at the community and family levels and treatment through community and health facilities. Such preventive interventions as infant and young child feeding counselling, growth and monitoring, WASH-in-nutrition and vaccination will be provided in an integrated way.
Social protection interventions will be designed to address vulnerabilities in Mali's evolving context using a cross-sectorial, multipurpose and multi-stakeholder approach. The focus will be on multipurpose humanitarian cash transfer interventions while working on bolstering the responsiveness of the national social protection system.
UNICEF has zero tolerance for sexual exploitation and abuse and will continue strengthening its internal systems for the protection from sexual exploitation and abuse among implementing partners. UNICEF will accompany the integration of gender-based violence risk mitigation across all sectors with the capacity building of implementing partners, and at the same time adopt a broader view towards scaling up its transformative gender work, as part of an integrated approach. Gender-based violence risk mitigation and standard measures for protection from sexual exploitation and abuse are systematically integrated into all UNICEF-funded interventions.
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 Mali; the strategies that we are using to respond to these situations; and the donor support that is essential in this response.