Uganda 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.
Uganda snapshot
Appeal highlights
- Uganda continues to face multiple humanitarian risks, including disease outbreaks, high numbers of refugees, climate shocks (floods, droughts), food insecurity and high rates of malnutrition.
- More than 89,000 children aged 6–59 months and 10,000 pregnant or lactating women are projected to suffer from acute malnutrition in the Karamoja subregion between February 2023 and January 2024.
- UNICEF will provide life-saving integrated multisectoral humanitarian assistance to children, adolescents, women and girls and people living with disabilities through partnerships with government authorities at all levels and with non-governmental organizations.
- The UNICEF response is informed by gender analysis and accounts for the differentiated risks, needs and capacities of women, girls, men and boys.
- In 2024, UNICEF requires $28.4 million to reach 1.2 million people (including 612,000 women and girls and 138,000 people with disabilities) with critical humanitarian assistance in Uganda.
Key planned targets
954,955 children and women accessing primary health care
432,779 primary caregivers receiving infant and young child feeding counselling
1.1 million people accessing a sufficient quantity and quality of water
2.4 million people reached with timely/life-saving information on access to available services
Funding requirements for 2024
Country needs and strategy
Humanitarian needs
The humanitarian situation in Uganda remains serious as the country continues to face multiple risks including climate shocks, food insecurity, high rates of malnutrition, refugee influxes and such public health emergencies as Ebola virus disease, measles, cholera and other epidemic-prone diseases. More than 2.4 million people, including 1.6 million children, 1.3 million women/girls and 277,682 people with disabilities are projected to need humanitarian assistance in 2024. The 2023 Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report indicates a deteriorating nutrition situation in the Karamoja subregion, with more than 89,000 children aged 6–59 months and 10,000 pregnant or lactating women expected to suffer from acute malnutrition by January 2024; 19,655 of these children will suffer from severe wasting.
Uganda is the country in Africa hosting the largest number of refugees, with more than 1.5 million refugees, 57 per cent of them children. With a total of 69,965 arrivals in Uganda between January and August 2023, more refugee influxes are anticipated to arrive in 2024, including unaccompanied and separated children and people with disabilities. In refugee-hosting communities, access to education remains low, with the gross enrolment ratio for early childhood development (preschool) at only 48 percent, and for primary and secondary education at 88.5 percent and 12 percent, respectively. Out-of-school children, including girls, are exposed to protection risks. Floods cause damage to school infrastructure (latrines, classrooms, furniture and learning materials), disrupting access to quality learning. Food insecurity in the Karamoja subregion has also affected school attendance. The food security situation among the refugee population is deteriorating, with the recent IPC analysis projecting that more than 8,926 children will suffer from severe wasting in the coming months.
Each year, floods impact nearly 50,000 people in Uganda. Between March and May 2023, more than 19,000 people were affected by floods, landslides, drought and heavy winds accompanied by hailstorms. Floods in the western, central and eastern regions of the country trigger the need for water, health, nutrition and food assistance. Every year, Uganda is also prone to public health emergencies that greatly affect communities, including children, women and people with disabilities. The residual social and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ebola virus disease outbreak continue to exacerbate the already difficult situation. Currently, the country is actively responding to a cholera outbreak in Kayunga and Namayingo districts, which is predicted to worsen with the upcoming El Niño weather pattern. Other epidemic-prone diseases affecting Uganda include Rift Valley fever, malaria and measles/rubella.
UNICEF’s strategy
In 2024, UNICEF will provide life-saving humanitarian assistance to affected populations in Uganda, including children, adolescents, women and girls and people living with disabilities. To do this, UNICEF will ensure strong links between humanitarian and development efforts, mainstream the prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse, integrate gender equality and gender-based violence risk mitigation and foster accountability to affected populations. UNICEF will align its humanitarian response in Uganda with the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework, Grand Bargain commitments and the country programme document for 2021–2025, emphasizing disaster risk management and capacity strengthening at the district level.
UNICEF's nutrition strategy will provide a life-saving response and promote long-term resilience in regions affected by severe wasting, in line with humanitarian–development nexus approaches. The strategy addresses underlying causes, including diseases like malaria and diarrhoea, inadequate infant feeding practices, poor sanitation and limited access to clean water. The response will strengthen strategic links with social protection, child protection, gender-base violence, WASH and health programming. Working closely with the social and behaviour change team, the nutrition response will address harmful normative behaviours and existing discriminatory gender practices that contribute to child wasting.
In 2024, the health strategy will focus on scaling up life-saving interventions among the populations at risk, using a primary health care lens. UNICEF will undertake deliberate efforts to integrate into the health response cross-sectoral dimensions including accountability to affected population, social and behaviour change, prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse, gender-base violence risk mitigation and disability inclusion. In partnership with the Government and other key WASH stakeholders, UNICEF will strengthen the humanitarian-development nexus by twinning life-saving WASH response with climate resilience actions and strengthen community management of WASH facilities for sustainability through training of community structures. UNICEF will support the development of integrated solar-powered water systems to benefit institutions and surrounding communities, strengthening their resilience to the impact of dwindling water availability due to climate change.
In child protection, UNICEF will support the government in training, equipping and deploying community-based para-social workers for timely identification and referral of children with protection needs. UNICEF will provide critical education supplies during emergencies, while strengthening the capacity of school systems for emergency preparedness and response. The UNICEF social protection response aims to bolster household resilience to shocks while contributing to strengthening the national social protection system, including the social protection single registry. This will be achieved by supporting humanitarian cash transfer schemes in four refugee-hosting districts and in six districts affected by acute malnutrition in the Karamoja subregion.
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 Uganda; the strategies that we are using to respond to these situations; and the donor support that is essential in this response.
