Chad 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.
Chad snapshot
Appeal highlights
- Chad is facing conflict-induced displacements, destructive rains, floods, loss of crops and the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Over 3 million schoolchildren (58 per cent girls) are affected by nationwide school closures; almost 1.8 million children under 5 years are suffering from global acute malnutrition, including 500,000 who are severely malnourished; and over 300,000 refugee children are at risk of not being vaccinated.
- UNICEF will implement a multi-sectoral and gender-sensitive strategy linking humanitarian action and development programming. This will include disease outbreak prevention and control, including in relation to COVID-19, early detection, quality treatment for severe acute malnutrition (SAM), distance and school-based learning, school materials for displaced, returnee and refugee children; and capacity building for the provision of care, referrals and psychosocial support.
- UNICEF requests US$59.5 million to respond to humanitarian needs in Chad. Thirty per cent of these funds will support the COVID-19 response.
Key planned results for 2021
403,437 children admitted for treatment for severe acute malnutrition
370,000 children vaccinated against measles
100,000 people accessing a sufficient quantity of safe water
223,500 children receiving individual learning materials
Funding requirements for 2021
Country needs and strategy
Humanitarian needs
Chad ranks 187 out of 189 countries on the Human Development Index, and 6.5 million Chadians live in poverty. COVID-19 has further reduced children's well-being and plunged at least 744,000 additional children into poverty. By the end of 2020, some 6.4 million people – over one third of the population – will require humanitarian assistance, up from 5.3 million in 2020.
Population displacements continue, with people fleeing non-state armed groups in the Lake Chad Basin and seeking refuge from neighbouring countries. Nearly 480,000 refugees reside in Chad, and some 397,000 Chadians are internally displaced, including 46,000 people who are newly displaced and 76,000 refugees who arrived in 2020 and need humanitarian assistance, including psychosocial support. Insecurity in the Lake Chad Basin is limiting humanitarian capacity to respond.
An estimated 2.7 million people in Chad are food insecure. Malnutrition data, adjusted to account for COVID-19 and the degradation in food security, show that nearly 1.8 million children (12.9 per cent) are affected by global acute malnutrition, including nearly 498,000 children (2.9 per cent) suffering from SAM.
Before the pandemic, over 3.7 million children were out of school. Current estimates indicate that over 3 million children (58 per cent girls), including over 100,000 refugees, nearly 84,000 internally displaced children and over 57,000 returning children, have been affected by nationwide school closures. In addition, nearly 140,000 students no longer have access to school canteens. Fear of infection has also led to declining health facility-based deliveries (3.9 per cent of expected deliveries) and may leave over 311,000 children unprotected by the pentavalent vaccine. Projections also indicate that infant and maternal mortality could increase by 11 per cent and 3 per cent, respectively, during the next 12 months.
The fragile health system is under severe pressure from outbreaks of measles, cholera and chikungunya. Half of the population has access to safe drinking water, only 1 person in 10 has access to adequate sanitation, and only 1 child in 17 washes their hands regularly. Children remain extremely vulnerable to physical and sexual violence and psychosocial distress, as well as recruitment into armed forces and exploitation. In displacement sites, 60 per cent of at-risk children are separated or unaccompanied, and gender-based violence is increasing among internally displaced persons and in host communities.
UNICEF’s strategy
UNICEF will implement a multi-sectoral humanitarian response consistent with the National Development Plan 2017-2021, the Humanitarian Response Plan 2021 and the COVID-19 response plan, while further harmonizing humanitarian responses and development interventions.
UNICEF will continue to support epidemic and disease outbreak prevention and control, including for COVID-19. In addition to supporting improved coverage of routine immunization and scheduled vaccination campaigns against measles and circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2, UNICEF will ensure that children affected by displacement remain protected against measles.
Early detection and quality treatment of children with SAM and community-based approaches to prevention will be consolidated. UNICEF will also seek out stronger government commitments to securing therapeutic nutrition supplies.
Support for distance and school-based learning and the provision of school materials to displaced, returnee and refugee children will continue, incorporating lessons learned from previous years including the 2020 COVID-19 response. UNICEF will also provide infection prevention and control support to health centres, schools and communities. This support will focus on access to clean water, adequate sanitation and hygiene promotion, including preventive and protective practices; and the effective participation of communities in preparedness, response and resilience building.
UNICEF will continue to identify solutions that address the needs of women and girls, including through gender-based violence mitigation, prevention and response; and engage women and girls as active community members. The response will also focus on building the capacities of specialized services and community-based structures to identify vulnerable children and provide adequate care, referrals and psychosocial support.
UNICEF's humanitarian action will be carried out in coordination with national authorities, United Nations agencies and humanitarian partners, and will reinforce national emergency preparedness and response mechanisms, such as inter-cluster coordination. UNICEF will continue to lead the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), nutrition and education clusters and the child protection sub-cluster and fulfill its role within the Humanitarian Country Team. As part of this role, UNICEF will reinforce government capacities and support the gradual transfer of cluster leadership to government counterparts. Communication for development activities will be integrated across sectors and interventions.
The response will focus on provinces affected by displacements and/or the arrival of refugees in the Lake Chad Basin, the east and south areas of the country (Lac, Hadjer Lamis, Logone oriental, Ouaddai and Sila) and the 18 (of 23) provinces considered most affected by the nutritional crisis. UNICEF will also respond to disease outbreaks and natural disasters throughout the country.
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 Chad; the strategies that we are using to respond to these situations; and the donor support that is essential in this response.
