Eritrea 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.
Eritrea snapshot
Appeal highlights
- In 2022, UNICEF will support the Government of the State of Eritrea’s (GoSE) response to the humanitarian needs of more than 1.2 million children and women affected by multiple vulnerabilities, including COVID-19.
- Working with partners, UNICEF will support the scale up of life-saving nutrition interventions by expanding the number of health centres offering treatment for acute malnutrition and undertaking a large-scale roll-out of single protocol to treat both severe (SAM) and medium acute malnutrition (MAM). UNICEF, together with GoSE, will support schools to sustain implementation of COVID-19 school protocols and teacher training in addressing potential learning-loss and bringing back out-of-school children. UNICEF will support GoSE efforts to expand essential life-saving and protection services to emergency-affected populations through community-based interventions. As lead of nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and education sectors and gender-based violence (GBV) area of responsibility, UNICEF will continue coordinating with all relevant line ministries.
- UNICEF is requesting US$13.7 million to meet the recurrent humanitarian needs of children in Eritrea in 2022.
Key planned results for 2022
300,000 children receiving vitamin A supplementation
60,000 people accessing a sufficient quantity of safe water
200,000 women and children accessing gender-based violence mitigation, prevention, response
10,000 children accessing educational services
Funding requirements for 2022
Country needs and strategy
Humanitarian needs
The impact of climate change has led to extreme weather patterns, which can affect water resources, food production, hygiene, sanitation and health, and particularly child and maternal nutrition. A nutrition routine screening surveillance conducted in May 2021 revealed an increase in acute malnutrition in the majority of the country’s regions compared to 2020. This routine mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) mass screening surveillance data (of 117,691 children under 5) indicates proxy global acute malnutrition (GAM) of 16.3 per cent - significantly higher than an emergency threshold (15 per cent).
Malnutrition combined with pneumonia and/or diarrhoea is the number one cause of child mortality in Eritrea. Access to child and maternal health services in remote areas is a cause for concern, as is the need for improved capacity in primary health care, disease surveillance and response and overall universal health coverage.
Even though the spread of COVID-19 has remained relatively low in Eritrea, its containment measures further limited vulnerable households’ access to basic services (nutrition, health, education, social protection and water). It is to acknowledge, agriculture-related subsistence livelihoods remained unaffected through the lockdown period. This has compounded the need to expand the existing income generating support to vulnerable families in order to reach more households through social transfers (cash and in-kind). Considering the vulnerability of female-headed households, orphans and children with disabilities, ensuring social protection to those left out of current government social assistance is paramount.
In addition, the one-year deficit in academic terms due to closure of schools from April 2020 to March 2021 leads to potential loss of learning and risk of children dropping out of school. Since April 2021, all Eritrean schools have fully reopened, following contextualized COVID-19 school reopening protocols. There is need to ensure the protocols remain relevant and that school managements enforce full adherence.
During humanitarian crises, many factors exacerbate risks related to gender-based violence (GBV). These include, but are not limited to, weakened community and state protections, displacement, scarcity of essential resources, disruption of community services, disrupted relationships and weakened infrastructure. Regardless of any of these factors, GBV is always taking place and must be addressed whether data is available or not.
The GoSE continues to monitor the well-being of its people owing to the conflict situation in Tigray region. If such a situation merits a humanitarian response, upon Government request UNICEF will jointly work with other UNCT members in coordinating a joint response.
UNICEF’s strategy
In 2022, UNICEF and partners will support the Government to mainstream humanitarian responses within its regular development programmes. This includes applying integrated and multi-sectoral approaches to life-saving interventions, such as supporting the integrated management of acute malnutrition and primary health care (PHC) services targeting children and pregnant women. Populations in hard-to-reach areas will be reached through mobile outreach clinics and trained Barefoot Doctors (BFD). Themed “Leaving No One Behind - Reaching the Unreached”, UNICEF will support the training of additional 30 BFDs (bringing to total 107 trained BFDs including 20 women), to be deployed to the remotest communities of Eritrea. BFDs help the communities to access PHC services. UNICEF procures routine medicines and ready-to-use therapeutic food and continues supporting nutrition sentinel surveillance units and mass screenings. UNICEF works with the Ministry of Health in scaling up neonatal intensive care services and to support treatment of malnutrition and mitigate its immediate causes - primarily, preventable diseases.
UNICEF will work with the Government in accelerating implementation of water and sanitation in communities and in institutions through provision of sustainable and climate-resilient safe drinking water, sanitation services, and through the community-led total sanitation approach. Provision of handwashing facilities in schools and at health facilities, accompanied by dissemination of hygiene messages, will promote handwashing and contribute to reducing diarrhoeal disease and ending open defecation.
UNICEF will work with the Ministry of Education in supporting implementation of the safe school and COVID-19 prevention school protocols, provide access to quality early childhood education for children in remote communities, and ensure continuity of education and blended accelerated learning for year-long loss of classroom learning. In support of back-to-school for drop-out children, UNICEF will support provision of teaching and learning materials.
Through community-based child protection platforms on social and child protection, focus will be on addressing violence against children (VAC), gender-based violence (GBV) and harmful practices. UNICEF will also support provision of mental health and psychosocial services for children and women. Social protection programmes will be enhanced to include provision of one-off cash grants to support income generating activities for vulnerable families, focusing on female-headed households and continuity with mobility support for children with disabilities to attend in-person classroom sessions.
UNICEF will support the Government in promoting resilience and reducing vulnerability among communities and use risk communication and community engagement programmes to strengthen community capacities and support accountability to affected communities to share their concerns.
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 Eritrea; the strategies that we are using to respond to these situations; and the donor support that is essential in this response.
