Bangladesh 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.
Bangladesh snapshot
Appeal highlights
- Four years on, Bangladesh is hosting over 895,000 Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar District. A densely populated country, Bangladesh is among the top 30 countries in terms of the COVID-19 caseload globally with 1,561,463 reported cases. Amid the pandemic, over 6 million people, of whom 43.6 per cent are children, are affected by monsoon floods annually.
- In line with inter-agency response plans, UNICEF will support the Government to prepare for and respond to humanitarian needs, providing equitable health, nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), education, child protection and gender-based violence services at scale.
- UNICEF is appealing for US$216.5 million to maintain life-saving services for Rohingya children and their families, support host communities affected by the refugee influx, and mitigate the worst direct and indirect impacts of COVID-19 and natural disasters on children and families across the country.
Key planned results for 2022
3.7 million children and women accessing health care
3.1 million people accessing a sufficient quantity of safe water
10 million children / caregivers accessing mental health and psychosocial support
734,369 children receiving individual learning materials
Funding requirements for 2022
Country needs and strategy
Humanitarian needs
As of 31 August 2021, Bangladesh is hosting over 895,000 Rohingya refugees, including 456,712 children, who fled violence in Rakhine State, Myanmar four years ago. Durable solutions are still being sought for their safe return to Myanmar. The COVID-19 pandemic, fire incidents, upsurge of acute watery diarrhoea/cholera, monsoon floods and landslides have further exacerbated their living conditions, especially for women and children. In 2021, the humanitarian response in the camps was delivered at drastically reduced levels due to the COVID-19 situation and related restrictions. Thousands of Rohingya refugee and host community volunteers worked tirelessly to deliver the most critical services through alternative means, such as home-based learning, and in compliance with COVID-19 prevention measures. However, the humanitarian community remains concerned by the deterioration of the overall protection environment and limited services in the camps. The need for reliable access to services, including psychosocial support and referrals, particularly the response to cases of gender-based violence and child protection issues, as well as much-needed education services, remain critical.
The COVID-19 situation across the country has severely affected the economy and for the firsttime in two decades reversed the poverty reduction trend. In addition to the impact on health, including mental health, and a steep increase in protection needs, the pandemic may also have long-term implications as a result of the learning losses. As of 10 October 2021, Bangladesh had the 29th highest caseload of COVID-19 globally with 1,561,463 confirmed cases, including 27,654 deaths. The mass COVID-19 inoculation is underway, however, as of October 2021, only 11 per cent of the total Bangladesh population and 3.7 per cent of Rohingya refugees in camps have been fully vaccinated. While response needs in some sectors (e.g. education, WASH, health and nutrition) are being increasingly addressed through the development programme, all response sectors are in need of strengthening preparedness with risk communication and community engagement for a potential COVID-19 upsurge.
Furthermore, Bangladesh is highly vulnerable to disasters such as floods, landslides and cyclones (Yaas and Gulab happened in 2021). Over 6 million people are affected by monsoon floods annually, with mostly children and women bearing the brunt of the crisis. People with disabilities, particularly women and girls, are disproportionately at risk of violence, exploitation and abuse, including gender-based violence (GBV). These risks are further exacerbated in the context of the pandemic.
UNICEF’s strategy
UNICEF will continue to provide multi-sectoral, life-saving humanitarian and sustainable interventions aligned with the Bangladesh Preparedness and Response Plan for COVID-19, Joint Response Plan for Rohingya refugee crisis, and revised Core Commitments for Children while fostering coherence and complementarity between humanitarian and development programming. Adhering to COVID-19 infection prevention and control measures, UNICEF will prioritize continuity of services in the camps and host communities, focusing on: 1) safe reopening and operation of Learning Centres and transition of education to the Myanmar Curriculum Pilot; 2) building and maintaining resilient water, sanitation and hygiene infrastructure and supporting adoption of appropriate hygiene practices; 3) enhancing primary healthcare, improving coverage of immunization services and expanding the community-based nutrition programme; 4) supporting community-based structures to identify vulnerable children in need of care and protection and provide adequate care, referrals and psychosocial support. UNICEF will address the needs of women and girls, including through mitigation, prevention and response to gender-based violence, engaging communities, especially adolescents, in preparedness, response and resilience-building.
UNICEF will support the Government of Bangladesh to mitigate and address the direct and indirect impacts of COVID-19 and natural disasters. With its strong field presence, UNICEF will monitor and support continuity of essential services for girls and boys, women and vulnerable communities. In particular, UNICEF will assist Government partners to maintain and improve quality of health and nutrition services at community and facility level. UNICEF will assist Ministries of Education and partners with safe reopening of schools/learning centres through supplies, communication materials and monitoring system to track equitable blended learning. UNICEF and the Department of Public Health Engineering will emphasize uninterrupted safe water supply and implementation of safe school protocols, including access to hand hygiene services. UNICEF will continue strengthening social workers’ capacity to prevent and respond to increasing child protection and gender-based violence incidents and to address child marriage.
Furthermore, UNICEF will continue leading the nutrition and WASH sectors/clusters, child protection sub-sector/cluster and co-leading the education sector/cluster. UNICEF will also co-lead the Risk Communication and Community Engagement Pillar to support the Government’s efforts to combat COVID-19. UNICEF will give a priority to Grand Bargain commitments, and will continue mainstreaming preparedness to disasters across sectors to strengthen the capacity of national actors to lead the response. UNICEF will ensure integrating accountability to affected populations and focusing on the prevention of gender-based violence and sexual exploitation while enhancing reporting by its partners.
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 Bangladesh; the strategies that we are using to respond to these situations; and the donor support that is essential in this response.
