Ukraine 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.
Ukraine snapshot
Appeal highlights
- The armed conflict in eastern Ukraine enters its eighth year and continues to take a heavy toll on civilians: ceasefire violations significantly intensified damaging homes, schools, water facilities and social infrastructure. Mine contamination remains a major source of threat to the life and safety of children. Limited access to basic services continues to threaten the mental and physical well-being of children. The COVID-19 pandemic continues to pose serious challenges for healthcare services and to increase child poverty.
- In 2022, UNICEF will continue to safeguard children's rights to safety, health, education, psychosocial support, protection and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services and address the needs of over 780,000 people. The response will address the impact of the armed conflict and the COVID-19 pandemic.
- UNICEF requires US$15.1 million to provide access to basic services including WASH, immunization and health care, schooling and learning, psychosocial support and emergency cash assistance for children and families.
Key planned results for 2022
780,000 people accessing a sufficient quantity of safe water
25,000 women and children accessing gender-based violence mitigation, prevention, response
10,000 households reached with UNICEF funded multi-purpose humanitarian cash transfers
50,000 people engaged in risk communication and community engagement actions
Funding requirements for 2022
Country needs and strategy
Humanitarian needs
Ukraine continues to face the unprecedented dual challenge of coping with the effects of an eight-year armed conflict in the east and the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite efforts to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict, the situation remains difficult for the 3.4 million people, including 510,000 children, living in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
In this context of protracted conflict, civilians bear the brunt of the crisis. Water and education infrastructure is frequently targeted, threatening children's access to safe water and schooling. Particularly in the non-government-controlled areas, access to learning is imperilled by weak teaching capacities and run-down infrastructure. Children and their families require continuous psychosocial support and protection services, including addressing gender-based violence (GBV) and assistance for victims of accidents related to explosive remnants of war, as well as mine risk education. Access to quality health services, especially for the most vulnerable, remains a daily challenge, exacerbated by the exodus of specialists.
In one of the world's most mine-contaminated areas, the risk of stepping on a landmine remains a stark reality. Due to the conflict-related incidents in 2021, four children were killed, and four children and 13 women were injured.
The health system, including emergency medical services, which was already weak, has continued to be severely challenged by the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite efforts by the Government and partners, there remains low awareness among medical professionals. Pervasive vaccine hesitancy led Ukraine to record one of the lowest COVID-19 vaccination rates in Eastern Europe despite the surplus of vaccine supplies. Slow vaccination rates and relaxed quarantine measures have led to two big waves of exponential growth in new confirmed cases.
Despite robust progress in recent years, Ukraine experiences low child immunization rates, putting a large cohort of children at additional risk. Over 270,000 children under 5 years of age and their mothers need critical health support, including immunization.
As of September 2021, following lockdown decisions in eastern Ukraine, some 140,000 children were affected by school closures. While a distance education programme has been launched, many vulnerable children have been excluded due to limited connectivity and lack of information technology.
The COVID-19 pandemic has hit vulnerable groups particularly hard and exacerbated pre-existing inequalities. According to a recent study, child poverty in Ukraine has increased to 65.7 per cent in the Donetsk Oblast. Children and adolescents with HIV/AIDS in the conflict area continue to face serious challenges in accessing quality care and support.
UNICEF’s strategy
In 2022, UNICEF’s strategy in Ukraine will continue to focus on protecting children and realizing child rights on both sides of the contact line, in government-controlled and non-government-controlled areas of Donetsk and Luhansk, while responding to the vulnerabilities caused by the dual crises of conflict and COVID-19.
To respond to the urgent needs of 780,000 people and children, UNICEF will strengthen social services and child protection, psychosocial support; and health, education and WASH services. The capacities of local professionals, authorities and civil society actors will be enhanced to strengthen preparedness and accountability to affected children, in line with the Grand Bargain commitments.
UNICEF will improve access to quality, inclusive, age- and gender-sensitive social services to increase families’ resilience to protection-related risks. UNICEF will work with humanitarian partners to target the most vulnerable, while also strengthening education, social welfare, health and other community-based services. As the lead agency for the WASH cluster and the child protection sub-cluster, UNICEF will continue to advocate with parties to the conflict to comply with international humanitarian law and child rights standards. This includes advocacy and technical support to the Government to implement the national action plan of the Safe Schools Declaration.
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted safe access to all services, including immunization and primary health care, schools and social care institutions, necessitating specific protective measures for institutions and professionals. To address this, UNICEF will continue to strengthen the capacities of the local authorities and service provision facilities in infection prevention and control to ensure a safe environment at the facility level.
To reduce the transmission of COVID-19, UNICEF will continue risk communication activities to raise awareness and increase knowledge on COVID-19 prevention measures through multimedia channels and community outreach activities, targeting care providers, parents/caregivers and the public. UNICEF and its partners will also increase accessto hygiene supplies and drinking water.
UNICEF will engage with pre-school and school-aged children with edutainment activities for healthy practices on nutrition, hygiene and social skills development. Advocacy will be conducted at the national and local levels, including in government-controlled and non-government-controlled areas to facilitate the provision of essential and quality services for children and women.
UNICEF will continue supporting community-level services and GBV services while increasing advocacy to strengthen public services. These actions will directly contribute to improving linkages between humanitarian action and development programmes in order to support durable solutions.
In response to the notable increase in child poverty rates in Ukraine, UNICEF will introduce an emergency cash assistance programme supporting the most vulnerable children.
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 Ukraine; the strategies that we are using to respond to these situations; and the donor support that is essential in this response.
