About us

UNICEF works with and for disadvantaged children and adolescents across 22 countries and territories in Europe and Central Asia where we have country programmes. We also have temporary programmes to respond to the needs of women and children seeking asylum, safety, refuge and better opportunities in additional European countries. Our programmes are run in close partnerships with national and local governments and a network of partners across the region.

In line with the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) our mandate and shaped by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we work to ensure that no child is left out of economic and social progress.  

Our work across the region

• We advocate for accelerated and far-reaching action on social safety nets to ease poverty, on infant mortality, on the quality of education, on the continued institutionalization of children and on the right of all children, adolescents and young people to take part in the decisions that affect them, and contribute to their societies
• We support the strengthening of national systems that safeguard the well-being of all children and adolescents
• We foster collaboration across sectors and strengthen the skills of service providers to deliver child-focused assistance.
• We demonstrate what works, supporting cutting-edge research, innovative approaches and awareness-raising among policymakers and the public.
• We support monitoring of the situation for children and progress so governments can be held to account for the commitments they have made to children.
• We work with partners to leverage and mobilize greater resources for all children and adolescents.

Partnership lies at the very heart of our work

The complex and inter-connected challenges that face many children in the region are often rooted in inequity, discrimination, lack of investment and weaknesses in the national systems that are supposed to ensure their well-being. No single organisation or approach can hope to tackle all of these challenges, which is why we never work alone. Partnership lies at the very heart of our work.

We work with communities, governments, civil society, donors and the private sector. We nurture and build partnerships to deliver for children; to close equity gaps and to address the most pressing child rights violations across the region.

Together, we address exclusion in countries where too many marginalized children are in institutions, too many are out of school, too many live in unsafe and hazard-prone communities and too many adolescents are excluded. These are children with disabilities, children of migrant workers, refugee and migrant children, children from ethnic minorities, rural children and the urban poor, children in conflict with the law or living in institutions and often, girls.

Our ambition is to get everyone working together as one on behalf of every child.