The European Union
UNICEF public sector partner
UNICEF partners with the European Union (EU) ─ including the European Commission, the European Parliament, the European External Action Service and the Council, across key programmatic areas such as education, social protection, nutrition, child protection, health and WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene), both in development and emergency settings. The partnership also focuses on key advocacy areas around child rights, including those related to child poverty, empowering and protecting children in the digital age, child participation, birth registration, child marriage, migration and equity.
In 2021, the European Commission championed new mechanisms to facilitate child and youth participation in EU decision-making processes. The EU, UNICEF and child rights organizations consulted more than 10,000 children living in Europe and beyond to shape the EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child. In preparation for the EU-AU Heads of State Summit, the EU, AU and UNICEF gathered over 450,000 European and African youth through U-Report to get their opinions on various topics like climate change, education, skills and jobs, digitalization, and good governance.
In the wake of COVID-19 school closures and the global learning crisis, UNICEF's Reimagine Education initiative increased focus on the EU's development and humanitarian interventions for education systems in Africa. A UNICEF-EU-AU high-level education event in April and the AU-UNICEF side event at the UN General Assembly built on the EU´s firm commitment to increase its development and humanitarian budget allocation for the education sector to 10 per cent and a four-fold increase in funding to UNICEF for education in emergencies.
With the first-ever predictable and flexible funding mobilized from DG ECHO, the humanitarian aid branch of the EU, UNICEF and the EU partnered for nutrition and support to the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in Africa, paving the way for additional opportunities to mobilize unearmarked and predictable funding from the EU.
2021 contributions1 to UNICEF
Other Resources (regular): US$255 million
Other Resources (emergency): US$329 million
Total: US$585 million
1Contributions received in cash and in kind.