UNICEF seeks $635 million for 33 emergencies, some well known, others forgotten

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) today launched its Humanitarian Action Report 2007, calling on donors to provide $635 million to aid children and women in 33 emergencies, ranging from Darfur in Sudan, which accounts for nearly a fifth of the appeal, to Haiti, Eritrea and the Central African Republic (CAR).

“Emergencies, both natural disasters and new or protracted conflicts, continue to take a toll on the lives of children and women around the world,” UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman said. “Life-saving activities are essential for those children in peril.”

The report provides an annual overview of the agency’s emergency aid programmes within the context of UN-wide appeals, setting out its relief activities and financial requirements for meeting the needs of children and women.

Of the requested amount $121 million is for Sudan, including programmes in the war-torn Darfur region, where continued conflict between Sudanese Government forces, allied militias and rebel groups has disrupted the lives of some 4 million people, including 1.8 million children. Children account for half of the more than 2.5 million people forced from their homes.

Children struggle to survive elsewhere, displaced by emergencies that lack the global attention surrounding Darfur. Some children in Colombia are forced from their homes by violence or recruited to fight. High HIV/AIDS rates and chronic poverty and food insecurity mean Zambian children live in one of the world’s poorest nations. Many of Chad’s children have fled fighting in neighbouring countries, or their own.

“Many of the crises in which UNICEF operates are neglected because they are no longer considered emergencies by the public,” UNICEF Emergency Programmes Director Dan Toole said. “The crisis for children does not end when the media coverage ends, whether a child lives in Darfur or Haiti. As long as a humanitarian situation exists for children, UNICEF will be assisting.”

UNICEF’s emergency funding raised $513 million in 2006, as of 1 November, covering 53 emergencies. Immediate tragedies continued to garner global media attention during the past year, but forgotten emergencies, highlighted in the report, received only 37 per cent of the funding required. Overall, UNICEF appeals for emergencies were 49 per cent funded.

Among the less topical crises, UNICEF cited South Sudan where 240,000 people have returned since signing of a peace accord in a conflict that is separate from Darfur; the Horn of Africa beset by cyclical drought then flooding and finally war in 2006; and Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, which have been affected by extensive damage to social and economic infrastructure.

Other emergencies include South Asia, which has the highest number of children living in absolute poverty, the highest prevalence of underweight children and the highest child mortality rates in the world; East Asia and the Pacific, still recovering from the 2004 tsunami and facing new crises such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, typhoons and floods; and the Middle East and North Africa, beset by the Iraq conflict, the aftermath of the Israeli-Hizbollah war in Lebanon and violence in the occupied Palestinian territory.