UNICEF Launches Appeal to Reach 109 Million Children With Lifesaving Support in 2025
UNICEF's appeal for $9.9 billion to fund Humanitarian Action for Children (HAC) for the coming year stresses the need for more flexible funding to optimize reach and impact.
HAC 2025: a commitment to equity and inclusion in humanitarian action
UNICEF launched a $9.9 billion funding appeal today to reach 109 million children across 146 countries with lifesaving aid in 2025.
With the release of the 2025 Humanitarian Action for Children (HAC) appeal, UNICEF reiterated its longstanding commitment to supporting and protecting the world's most vulnerable children — those with disabilities, children from marginalized communities, refugee and migrant children, girls — no matter where they are or where they are from.
UNICEF also emphasized the need for more flexible funding to ensure a speedy, equitable response to unfolding and protracted crises.
An estimated 213 million children will need assistance in the coming year — a staggeringly high number, UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said. "It is UNICEF’s mandate to reach each of these children with the essential services and supplies they need, and to ensure that their rights are protected and upheld — a mandate that has guided our work for the past 78 years."
With partners, UNICEF works to reach children living through humanitarian crises with both immediate lifesaving services and investments in their longer-term development. The $9.9 billion will be used to fund UNICEF's humanitarian response to multiple conflicts, climate shocks, displacement and health crises in the coming year, with specific targets in health, nutrition, water and sanitation, education and child protection. (Read our HAC 2025 summary to learn more.)
Flexible funding is key, because it enables UNICEF to respond quickly in an emergency, adapt that response as conditions and needs change and better prepare for future risks. Flexible funding also helps ensure equitable allocation of resources, allowing UNICEF to reach children in crises that have been largely forgotten.
Last year, donors contributed more than 50 percent of UNICEF’s thematic humanitarian funding to just four emergencies — Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Syria and Ukraine – a fraction of the 412 emergencies UNICEF responded to in 107 countries. Meanwhile, humanitarian operations in countries such as Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lebanon, Mali, Myanmar and Uganda remain severely underfunded.
“Support for UNICEF's flexible humanitarian and core resources are critical for our work for children affected by crises,” Russell said. “Imagine what we can achieve for children working together through principled humanitarian action, creating a world where the rights of every child are protected and upheld, and where every child can develop and thrive — a world fit for every child.”
Announcing the HAC plan during a live virtual briefing on Dec. 5, UNICEF Representative in Cameroon, Nadine Perrault, and Director of the Office of Emergency Programs, Lucia Elmi, co-led a tour of frontline efforts in several countries to illustrate the needs of children and how UNICEF is addressing them.
Looking at UNICEF's 2024 results, Elmi noted several examples of tangible impact, such as refurbishing schools to get children back to learning in Haiti; distributing humanitarian cash transfers to families in Gaza; ensuring access to safe water and sanitation for over 8 million people in Sudan, including 2 million at high risk of cholera; and equipping 3,000 health facilities in Yemen to provide essential health care to women and children.
The goal of the 2025 appeal is to continue to build on these and other results, and increase UNICEF's impact by filling resource gaps with flexible funding that supports an equity approach.
Spotlight on Burkina Faso: reaching the hardest-to-reach children
UNICEF's humanitarian response in Burkina Faso is among the most severely underfunded. In this landlocked country in Africa's Central Sahel, children face high risks of acute malnutrition and other threats to their health and safety due to years of conflict, insecurity and mass displacement.
UNICEF works with partners to improve access to safe water, strengthen the education system, and provide nutrition support and mental health and psychosocial support services.
Daouda Sanou, an emergency water and sanitation specialist, spoke from the UNICEF field office in Dori. He described meeting many children and families who speak about the violence and brutality they’ve endured, and how UNICEF is working to improve conditions in the displacement camps where they live.
"To reach many of the towns and villages is not easy," he said. Roads aren't safe, because they are mined, and bridges have been destroyed, so UNICEF and partners must transport supplies by air instead of by truck. "That is how we reach the communities that are isolated and are in really difficult locations," he said.
Sanou went by helicopter on a recent mission to Arbinda, an area in northern Burkina Faso where roughly 30,000 people, mostly women and children have sought refuge. "We only had three hours on the ground to evaluate the situation and to try to respond urgently to the needs of health centers, schools and community [members]," he said.
Local partners play a critical role in reaching both displaced and host families. Distribution of hygiene kits and other supplies is done in batches, as it is too dangerous to have large groups gather in one place, Sanou explained.
Flexible funding from supporters will help UNICEF continue to meet the needs of children and families in Burkina Faso and other countries whose crises remain out of the media spotlight, and advance equity in humanitarian action.
Learn more about UNICEF's 2025 Humanitarian Action for Children funding appeal here.
HOW TO HELP
There are many ways to make a difference
War, famine, poverty, natural disasters — threats to the world's children keep coming. But UNICEF won't stop working to keep children healthy and safe.
UNICEF works in over 190 countries and territories — more places than any other children's organization. UNICEF has the world's largest humanitarian warehouse and, when disaster strikes, can get supplies almost anywhere within 72 hours. Constantly innovating, always advocating for a better world for children, UNICEF works to ensure that every child can grow up healthy, educated, protected and respected.
Would you like to help give all children the opportunity to reach their full potential? There are many ways to get involved.
