Mali 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.
Mali snapshot
Appeal highlights
- Mali is experiencing a multidimensional crisis, driven by the combined impacts of insecurity, inter-communal conflict, socio-political instability, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, affecting 12.9 million people. Of these, 7.5 million – one in three Malians – need humanitarian assistance. Grave violations of children's rights are pervasive and displacement remains a major concern with 362,907 people internally displaced.
- UNICEF will implement an integrated and coordinated response, focusing on building peaceful, inclusive and resilient communities while strengthening the linkages between humanitarian action, development and peace programming. Interventions are designed to meet the needs of the most vulnerable children and communities, including those impacted by the socioeconomic effects of COVID-19. A systematic gender lens will inform all analysis and programme design.
- In 2022, UNICEF is requesting US$127.7 million to reach 2.5 million people, including 2.2 million children, with critical humanitarian assistance in Mali.
Key planned results for 2022
197,671 children admitted for treatment for severe acute malnutrition
200,000 children vaccinated against measles
482,000 people accessing a sufficient quantity of safe water
372,733 children / caregivers accessing mental health and psychosocial support
Funding requirements for 2022
Country needs and strategy
Humanitarian needs
Mali is facing multiple crises, including insecurity in the center and north, with strong regional ramifications (especially in Liptako Gourma), inter-communal conflicts, socio-political instability, climate change and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, affecting 12.9 million people. The humanitarian situation has deteriorated. In 2022, 7.5 million people will be in need of humanitarian assistance, including 3.9 million women, 5.1 million children and 1.1 million people with disabilities. As a result of ongoing attacks against civilians, the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) has steadily increased and now totals 362,907 people, of which 55 per cent are female and 64 per cent are children. Hostilities often result in grave violations of child rights including killing, maiming, recruitment and use by armed groups, as well as gender-based violence. Across the country, 1.6 million children need protection. Attacks and threats by armed groups on education infrastructure, initially limited to the central and northern regions, have now expanded to the south of the country, affecting 500,000 children and 10,000 teachers across insecure regions. In the northern and central regions, more than 96 per cent of IDPs live in areas where access to water is below the national average. Mali also has one of the highest mortality rates due to unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in Africa.
Global acute malnutrition prevalence exceeds 10 per cent in several areas; more than 247,000 children under 5 years of age are suffering from severe acute malnutrition; and food insecurity affects 3.6 million people. In addition to the COVID-19 pandemic, the fragile health system is struggling with several other disease outbreaks, including measles, cholera and polio. In Mali, 4.4 million people need access to basic health services. Increasing constraints on humanitarian access are a major concern, especially in areas lacking basic social services and infrastructure.
Mali ranks 184 out of 189 countries on the Human Development Index and 49.7 per cent of households live below the income poverty line. Gender inequalities also impact child rights and hinder access to basic services. The political situation in Mali remains unstable with changes of power observed in 2020 and 2021, which could undermine government's ability to provide basic social services and cause delays in the humanitarian response.
UNICEF’s strategy
UNICEF’s strategy will focus on strengthening the linkages between humanitarian action, development, and social cohesion programming to build inclusive and resilient communities and systems. UNICEF will emphasize community engagement, including the participation of women and girls; scale up accountability to affected populations; expand gender-, youth- and disability-responsive programming; and strengthen the principle of “do no harm” across all areas of work.
In line with the national COVID-19 response plan, interventions will meet the needs of the most vulnerable children and communities, with a focus on risk communication and community engagement and supporting the continuity of basic services. UNICEF will build on its comparative advantage in localization to foster linkages with national social protection systems by ensuring that targeting mechanisms are child-sensitive and by collaborating with other key players to strengthen coordination and governance systems. This support will facilitate financial access to goods and services that meet the basic needs of children, in line with the Grand Bargain commitments. UNICEF will provide technical assistance to the government to strengthen its emergency preparedness and response system at the national and decentralized levels.
UNICEF will lead the WASH, education and nutrition clusters and the child protection area of responsibility to ensure an integrated and coordinated response while strengthening conflict-sensitive, gender-responsive and child-centered policies and local development plans.
Through an integrated package of services, UNICEF will address both acute and chronic malnutrition through early detection of wasting and provision of quality nutrition care to severely wasted children. To ensure prevention of wasting, stunting and micronutrient deficiencies among children, UNICEF will support preventive services including micronutrient supplementation. UNICEF will continue to support national immunization campaigns, outbreak response, and essential maternal neonatal and child health services, and will support systems strengthening to build resilience through the provision of equipment, medicines, and commodities to health facilities. Infection prevention and control interventions will be implemented in communities and facilities and crisis-affected people will gain access to safe water and adequate sanitation.
UNICEF and partners will undertake gender-based violence risk mitigation and prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse activities across all sectors. Children experiencing psychosocial distress, children released from armed groups, unaccompanied and separated children, and survivors of gender-based violence will be reached with services including mental health and psychosocial support, family reunification and socioeconomic reintegration. Strengthening the monitoring and reporting mechanism on grave violations of child rights will enhance evidence-based advocacy and response. The most vulnerable children will gain access to quality education, in a protective learning environment.
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 Mali; the strategies that we are using to respond to these situations; and the donor support that is essential in this response.
