Syrian Arab Republic 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.
Syrian Arab Republic snapshot
Appeal highlights
- Children throughout the Syrian Arab Republic face one of the world's most complex emergencies. More than 14.6 million people (6.5 million children) require assistance, and 6.9 million people (3 million children) are internally displaced. A full two thirds of the population requires assistance due to a worsening economic crisis, localized hostilities, mass displacement and devastated public infrastructure.
- In 2023, UNICEF will deliver life-saving and early recovery services with its partners and field offices, fostering the resilience of children and families. UNICEF will address the needs of girls, boys, adolescents and families through integrated gender-responsive programming prioritizing high-severity areas; and by systematizing preparedness, accountability to affected populations and the prevention of gender-based violence and sexual exploitation.
- UNICEF requires US$328.5 million to meet the needs of children in the Syrian Arab Republic in 2023. The greatest funding requirements are for water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), health (including the cholera response) and education.
Key planned results for 2023
1.8 million children and women accessing primary health care
1.2 million primary caregivers receiving infant and young child feeding counselling
2.3 million children supported with educational services and supplies in formal settings
3.6 million people accessing a sufficient quantity and quality of water
Funding requirements for 2023
Country needs and strategy
Humanitarian needs
Children in the Syrian Arab Republic continue to face one of the most complex emergencies in the world. Two thirds of the population requires assistance because of a worsening economic crisis, continued localized hostilities, mass displacement and devastated public infrastructure. The 14.6 people in need include 4.3 million women, 6.5 million children (2.9 million girls), 4.2 million people with disabilities and 5.3 million internally displaced people.
A cholera outbreak declared on 10 September 2022 quickly spread across the country. It threatened children, especially those living in crowded informal settlements. The outbreak is a result of the large-scale destruction of water and sanitation infrastructure, the economic crisis, electricity outages and prolonged drought. Forty-seven per cent of the population relies on alternative water sources, up from 37 per cent in 2021; 2 million fewer people are using water networks than in 2020 due to a combination of natural and human factors.
Ninety per cent of families in the Syrian Arab Republic live in poverty and 55 per cent are food insecure. Food prices in the country increased by a third in the first six months of the war in Ukraine. Undernutrition (high stunting levels, increasing wasting levels and micronutrient deficiencies) and overweight affect 3.75 million children. Only two-thirds of schools and half of health centres are fully functional. There are 2.4 million children out of school and 1.6 million at risk of dropping out. Children with disabilities are particularly likely to be deprived of their education.
Protection concerns remain paramount. In 2021, 2,271 grave violations were recorded against children, including recruitment, killing and maiming, a six per cent increase compared with 2020. The economic crisis is worsening negative coping mechanisms and particularly affecting female-headed households; it is contributing to the normalization of gender-based violence and child exploitation, which predominantly affects girls and boys. Seventy-one per cent of communities surveyed reported child marriage (often affecting girls) and 84 per cent reported that children are working (often affecting boys).
Ninety-one per cent of the 4.5 million people living in the northwest are in need of humanitarian assistance, including 2.8 million internally displaced people. Food insecurity affects 3.1 million people in the area, and 1.9 million people are reliant on water trucking. Protection concerns are acute for the 12,000 women and children living in 48 so-called ‘widow camps’.
In the northeast, political and conflict dynamics drive elevated protection concerns and complicate aid delivery. Among those affected are internally displaced people in Al-Hol camp (54,000 people, 64 per cent children) and Al-Roj camp (2,600 people, 66 per cent children), including children who are third-country nationals and need repatriation to their countries of origin.
UNICEF’s strategy
UNICEF prioritizes high-severity areas using the Whole of Syria approach from its hubs in Damascus, Amman (Jordan) and Gaziantep (Turkey), as well as its six field offices. UNICEF leads the Education, Nutrition and WASH Sectors/Clusters and the Child Protection Area of Responsibility. Cross-border access to the northwest was extended for only six months by Security Council Resolution 2642, leaving access to 4.5 million people highly precarious. The resolution also called for increased early recovery efforts and crossline assistance.
UNICEF is gradually incorporating early recovery programming while maintaining a strong focus on humanitarian assistance. Working along this nexus strengthens the linkages between the needs-based emergency response and essential service restoration, resilience and social cohesion.
UNICEF and its implementing partners will provide services, including health consultations and preventive and curative nutrition services, in areas of highest need. In parallel, support will be extended to rebuild local health systems and improve the coverage of the expanded programme on immunization. Emergency WASH services will be upgraded from trucking to more cost-effective network rehabilitations, with a focus on high-severity areas, and increasingly on climate resilience.
Through the No Lost Generation initiative, UNICEF will reach children at scale with integrated education, child protection and adolescent development opportunities. Non-formal education will be delivered with implementing partners, while investments are planned to allow the education system to absorb the current cohort of school-aged children, including for inclusive and early childhood education. Adolescents will participate in their communities through life skills and social cohesion programming.
Eliminating violence against children will be integrated into all programme areas, with a social norms and behaviour change communications lens, ensuring children are safe in their homes, schools and communities. Psychosocial support, explosive ordnance risk education, case management and gender-based violence prevention will aim to reduce children’s exposure to violence, exploitation and abuse. Vulnerable families will receive cash transfers, combined with case management to meet the overlapping needs of children with disabilities.
The response is informed by gender analysis, accounting for the risks, needs and capacities of women, girls, men and boys. UNICEF and all its partners will uphold protection from sexual exploitation and abuse protocols, with safe and confidential reporting mechanisms made available to beneficiaries. Mechanisms to engage UNICEF beneficiaries in programming – though information provision, risk communication and community engagement and feedback mechanisms – will be mainstreamed. This includes promoting positive social norms and practices to reduce communities' vulnerability and increase their resilience. Programme strategies will be improved through a comprehensive evidence base, including evaluations of prorgamming in the areas of adolescence, WASH and social and behavioural change, and integrated programming.
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 the Syrian Arab Republic; the strategies that we are using to respond to these situations; and the donor support that is essential in this response.
