About UNICEF
UNICEF works in 190 countries and territories to protect the rights of every child. UNICEF has spent 70 years working to improve the lives of children and their families.
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UNICEF believes
We believe that nurturing and caring for children are the cornerstones of human progress. UNICEF was created with this purpose in mind - to work with others to overcome the obstacles that poverty, violence, disease and discrimination place in a child's path.
All children have a right to survive, thrive and fulfill their potential – to the benefit of a better world.
For 70 years, UNICEF has worked to improve the lives of children and their families.
Despite remarkable challenges around the world, UNICEF staffers fight for the rights of every child seeking safe shelter, nutrition, protection from disaster and conflicts, and equality.
UNICEF works with the United Nations and its agencies to make sure that children are on the global agenda. UNICEF strikes a balance between thorough research and practical solutions for children.
UNICEF in Mozambique
UNICEF has supported Mozambique for almost four decades. During this time, the country has been faced with numerous significant challenges including war, post-conflict recovery and peace-building, poverty, recurrent natural disasters and the surge of HIV and AIDS.
In the late 1960s, UNICEF began cooperating with pro-independence movements in the Portuguese-administered African Territories, including Mozambique, providing assistance for basic services such as health, nutrition, rural water supply, education, and emergency relief.
A UN fact-finding mission visited Mozambique in February 1975. This led to the first ongoing commitment of US$ 1.2 million by UNICEF, allocated for a mass vaccination campaign, primary health interventions, rural water supply and the rehabilitation of teacher training centers.
After Mozambique’s independence from Portugal on 25 June 1975, UNICEF opened its first office in Maputo, staffed with a Representative and an Assistant Project Officer.
By 1985, UNICEF’s expenditure in Mozambique had increased fourfold. At the same time, a civil war between the Government and RENAMO rebel groups gripped most of the countryside.
Women and children particularly bore the brunt of the civil strife. The war lasted for 16 years. Up to 1990, UNICEF spent US$ 35 million on emergency activities to support women and children displaced by a war which cost the lives of an estimated one million people.
After the signing of the Peace Accords in 1992, UNICEF supported reconciliation and recovery efforts including the demobilization of child soldiers and their reintegration into family life and society.
UNICEF supported the Government and Non-Governmental Organizations such as Save the Children to reunify thousands of unaccompanied and separated children with their families. UNICEF also supported trauma counseling and psychosocial support for thousands of children and their families.
Another focus of the UNICEF program during this period was the rehabilitation of health posts, schools, and other social services, particularly in remote areas which could not have been reached during the war.
In 2000, Mozambique suffered the worst flood in its recent history. Almost 1 million people living in riverine areas were directly affected by the emergency which attained significant international attention and support.
UNICEF alone received US$ 21.5 million to support the victims of flooding. This enabled the Organization to work with partners to expand existing programs, such as community capacity development and school health, to fight malaria and water-borne diseases and to conduct a massive immunization campaign.
Mozambique once again experienced flooding a year later, in 2001, affecting an even larger geographical area, but only about half of the number of people due to the low population density in the regions hardest hit and relocation of some populations from the previous year.
Since the end of the 1990s, the response to the escalating AIDS crisis has become a major focus for UNICEF due to the increasing impact of the pandemic, especially on children. The Country Program 1999-2001 addressed the pandemic for the first time.
Currently, UNICEF's work in Mozambique is guided by its Country Programme 2017-2020, that supports the Mozambican the Government’s Five-Year Plan (PQG 2015-2019).