Middle East and North Africa 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
- Children in the Middle East and North Africa face life-threatening situations and multiple vulnerabilities caused by a variety of natural and social hazards, protracted and acute armed conflicts, public health emergencies and climate change-related disasters.
- UNICEF prioritizes emergency preparedness and response to meet the immediate humanitarian needs of children and communities affected by deteriorating humanitarian situations across the region. In 2024, UNICEF will focus on building capacity internally and among partners to effectively address vulnerabilities and ensure readiness to respond to the humanitarian and protection needs of the hardest to reach and most vulnerable children, including those who are separated, unaccompanied and displaced. Building gender-responsive and inclusive national and local capacities for child rights and protection and providing access to vital services to marginalized populations are a must.
- UNICEF requires $72.6 million to implement its humanitarian action across the region and cover the needs of approximately 9 million people, including 3.8 million children. This appeal includes the funding requirements of Algeria, Djibouti, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Libya, while also focusing on a coordinated preparedness and response approach to crises with broader regional impacts.
Key statistics
83.9 million people in need of health and nutrition assistance
34 million children in need of protection services
36.9 million children in need of education support
59 million people lack access to safe water
Funding requirements for 2024
Regional needs and strategy
Humanitarian needs
The Middle East and North Africa region faces unprecedented challenges, including the impact of protracted and changing crises, compounded by the consequences of climate change. Humanitarian situations and conflicts have diminished national and local capacities and infrastructure. Governance fragility, natural hazards and other global crises have left the most vulnerable populations in the region to experience the worst effects of these situations.
A record number of children across the region, including in the State of Palestine, the Sudan, the Syrian Arab Republic and Yemen, are displaced, have lost family members and continue to be exposed to violence, including gender-based violence, and other trauma. Since conflict erupted in the Sudan, 6 million people, half of them children, have fled their homes. The Sudan is now home to the largest child displacement crisis in the world. Egypt has experienced a surge of Sudanese refugees following the outbreak of war in the Sudan. Prolonged conflict, natural disasters, health emergencies and socioeconomic decline have left 7 million Syrian children in dire need. Despite de-escalation, 11.1 million children remain in need of humanitarian assistance due to protracted conflict in Yemen. The magnitude of hostilities in the State of Palestine has resulted in grave humanitarian consequences, placing children and their families at risk and restricting their access to essential services. Ensuring sustained humanitarian aid in the State of Palestine is imperative, along with strengthening the readiness of UNICEF and its partners to respond in neighbouring countries.
Mixed migration through North African countries to Europe is on the rise and likely to continue, worsening the protection risks for those on the move, especially children and female-headed households. In addition to this, in September 2023, floods and the impact of climate change in Libya exacerbated the fragile security and political instability there, while Djibouti continues to struggle with the effects of drought. The Islamic Republic of Iran hosts the second largest refugee population in the world, within a challenging context severely affected by economic constraints, including sanctions. And Algeria is dealing with a protracted Sahrawi refugee situation in Tindouf.
UNICEF’s strategy
In accordance with the Core Commitments for Children in Humanitarian Action, UNICEF's strategy is to meet immediate humanitarian needs while also building the capacity of national and local civil society partners to address existing and emerging vulnerabilities and ensure the protection and promotion of child rights in humanitarian action. UNICEF will enhance its internal capability, at country and regional levels, for readiness and response: identifying regional ‘hotspots’ and ensuring operational capacity to deploy the right resources at the right time when emergencies strike.
Strong and responsive inter-agency coordination mechanisms are crucial to addressing regional and interregional humanitarian crises. UNICEF will invest in strengthening new and existing partnerships for effective, multisector preparedness and response programming, including a specific focus on access to the most vulnerable and on the protection needs of separated, unaccompanied and displaced children throughout the Middle East and North Africa region.
UNICEF will engage social actors and utilize technology to support durable solutions, promote localization and accountability to crisis-affected populations and invest in social and behaviour change communication, including social research and social listening. UNICEF will promote disability inclusion and gender analysis and response. And it will address the needs of youth and adolescents and ensure that multisectoral services, education and cash transfers are provided in emergency responses. Improving humanitarian monitoring, evidence gathering and analysis and strengthening nexus and risk-informed programming is key for high-quality, timely and needs-driven emergency responses.
UNICEF is committed to delivering timely humanitarian assistance to people affected and displaced by armed conflict and in the aftermath of flooding in Libya. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, UNICEF contributes to the Regional Refugee Response Plan , prioritizing the provision of essential services to Afghan refugees and host communities. In Algeria, UNICEF continues responding to Sahrawi refugees' humanitarian needs, in line with the Sahrawi Refugee Response Plan. In Djibouti, UNICEF will support national, decentralized and community efforts to provide assistance to children and populations affected by worsening climate conditions. UNICEF will also focus on strengthening a coordinated preparedness and response approach to crises with broader regional impacts.
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 the Middle East and North Africa; the strategies that we are using to respond to these situations; and the donor support that is essential in this response.