Children on the Move including Venezuelans, and other Crisis-Affected Communities 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.
Children on the move including Venezuelans, and other crisis-affected communities, snapshot
Appeal highlights
- In 2023, an estimated 16.6 million people, including 5.4 million children, will need humanitarian support in the South American region related to various ongoing displacement crises. Nearly 6 million of the 7.1 million Venezuelan refugees and migrants worldwide are being hosted in the region. In Colombia, internal displacement, violence and disasters have left 7.7 million people, 31 per cent of them children, in need of humanitarian assistance.
- UNICEF will deliver critically necessary and gender-responsive humanitarian interventions focused on child protection (including from gender-based violence), education, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), health and nutrition. The response will strengthen preparedness and linkages between humanitarian action and development programming.
- In 2023, UNICEF requests US$160.5 million to deliver humanitarian assistance to 2.2 million people in the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago and Uruguay. This appeal covers those affected by human mobility from Venezuela, as well as vulnerable populations in need of support in Colombia.
Key planned results for 2023
132,353 primary caregivers receiving infant and young child feeding counselling
254,137 children/caregivers accessing community-based mental health and psychosocial support
182,900 children accessing formal or non-formal education, including early learning
243,185 people accessing a sufficient quantity and quality of water
Funding requirements for 2023
Country needs and strategy
Humanitarian needs
The South American region faces multiple crises due to migration movements, violence, civil unrest, climate change, the residual impacts of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, rising inflation, increase in energy and food prices and the slowdown in the region’s economic growth as an indirect effect of the war in Ukraine. All of these factors, combined with some governments' limited emergency preparedness capacity, have compounded people's exclusion and vulnerabilities, severely impacting migrant and refugee children.
In Colombia, vulnerable communities continue to face humanitarian needs due to the violence of armed groups, which has caused internal displacement, and because of climate-related disasters and the residual impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is estimated that 7.7 million people (31 per cent children and 34 per cent women) are in need of humanitarian assistance.
The region has witnessed one of the largest refugee and migration crises in the world, largely due to the socioeconomic and political crisis in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. By the end of 2022, nearly 7 million people had migrated from the country. Around 6 million migrants and refugees are living in the region, including children requiring protection and assistance.
During 2022, there was a significant increase in the number of refugees and migrants engaging in onward movements among different countries. Most countries of the region have implemented entry restrictions. This has led migrants to travel along irregular pathways, which in turn has exposed them to various forms of violence. It has heightened risks (particularly among women and girls) of gender-based violence, trafficking and smuggling. Children and their families crossing border points often lack access to safe WASH, education, health, nutrition and appropriate child protection services.
Despite host governments' efforts to undertake comprehensive integration processes, refugee and migrant populations have been disproportionally affected by the region's current socioeconomic situation. Many have lost their livelihoods and are not able to meet their most urgent needs, including access to social protection systems and basic income support. This has fostered harmful coping strategies, including sexual exploitation. The situation affects migrants' prospects for socioeconomic integration, because it has contributed to a rise in discrimination and xenophobia. Moreover, many refugee and migrant children and adolescents in the region still face multiple obstacles to accessing education services in the host countries, due to the lack of resources and the widespread lack of documentation, which often undermines their ability to enrol. Refugees and migrants in transit, especially those undertaking long journeys, have great difficulties accessing essential WASH services along their routes and those at their destination also suffer from inadequate access to WASH services.
UNICEF’s strategy
Guided by the lessons learned from the Venezuelan outflow response initiated in 2018, in 2023 and 2024 UNICEF will continue to assist the most vulnerable migrants and refugees, as well as people affected by violence and displacement, including women and children - particularly unaccompanied and separated children, children with disabilities and those from indigenous groups.
In line with the Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan (RMRP), and UNICEF's Agenda for Action for Refugee and Migrant Children, UNICEF, in coordination with United Nations agencies, Governments and partners, will: 1) promote and advocate for the rights of migrant, refugee and internally displaced children and their families, including indigenous populations; 2) ensure access to child protection, social protection, education, gender-based violence prevention and response, early childhood development, health, nutrition and WASH services for migrant, refugee, internally displaced and host community children; and 3) promote social inclusion, integration and prevention of xenophobia by ensuring access to social services and long-term solutions, the regularization of children’s and families’ legal status and legal identity and strengthened social policies and national/local capacities.
In Colombia, UNICEF will continue to work closely with other United Nations agencies, national and local authorities, non-governmental organizations and civil society organizations to provide children and families affected by armed conflict, internal displacement, confinement and other forms of violence with education in emergencies, protection, WASH, health and nutrition services, in line with the inter-agency Humanitarian Response Plan.
UNICEF will be accountable to the affected populations and will ensure the equitable participation of women and girls in design of interventions and the representation of women and girls in all community feedback and complaint mechanisms. Programmes will target the most vulnerable people, including migrants and refugees, internally displaced people, those affected by violence, survivors of gender-based violence, children with disabilities, adolescents and indigenous groups. UNICEF will address financial barriers that prevent access to key services by providing cash transfers and strengthening linkages between humanitarian action and development programming. UNICEF will also focus on preparedness and contingency planning.
At the regional level, UNICEF will continue to provide technical assistance and quality assurance to the field. UNICEF will enhance advocacy efforts and contribute to the inter-agency RMRP, to include strategic leadership in the child protection, education, nutrition, WASH, cash transfers and social protection and communications sectors. UNICEF also co-leads the prevention against sexual exploitation and abuse community of practice.
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 on the move, including Venezuelans, and and other crisis-affected communities; the strategies that we are using to respond to these situations; and the donor support that is essential in this response.
