Every Day Counts
Children of Syria cannot wait any longer
Overall situation in Syria today
Syria continues to face one of the most complex emergencies in the world. Unprecedented humanitarian needs are compounded by displacement inside the country and across its borders, extensive destruction of civilian and social services infrastructure, devastating impacts on the economy, and most importantly, the breakdown of the social fabric that stitched the country together for decades.
Today, 90 per cent of people in Syria live in poverty, most are unable to make ends meet or bring food to the table. Families have had their resources depleted, with limited employment opportunities, skyrocketing prices, and shortage of basic supplies. For most people, the current socio-economic challenges represent some of the harshest and most challenging circumstances they have faced since the beginning of the crisis 11 years ago.
In 2022, 14.6 million people need humanitarian assistance. This is the highest number of people in need ever recorded in Syria since 2011. The number of children in need - more than 6.5 million – has increased by seven per cent in the past year alone. This is largely due the ongoing conflict, continued displacements, the unprecedented economic crisis, deepening poverty, and unemployment. The COVID-19 pandemic, the hike in price of commodities triggered by the overall global economic situation and the impact of sanctions are further compounding the dire situation.
Children in Syria bear the brunt
Children in Syria continue to live a life riddled with fear. Fear of violence, loss of friends and loved ones, landmines, and explosive remnants of war. They struggle with physical and psychological injuries. If their trauma is left untreated, they are likely to be scarred for life with severe consequences on their health and future.
The lives of children in Syria have changed over the past decade. Many know nothing but the conflict, many were born into it. The future for all children hangs by a thread. Syria continues to be one of the most dangerous places for children to live in.
Across Syria, some 2.4 million children, aged 5-17 years, are out of school. They represent nearly half of the about 5.52 million school-aged children. These children fall prey to child labour, early and forced marriage, trafficking, and recruitment into the fighting. More children are likely to miss out on education and are at risk of permanently dropping out. The longer children stay out of school, the more difficult it is for them to catch up. Some children have already lost 10 years of school.
One in three schools in Syria are no longer used for educational purposes. They have been destroyed, damaged, continue to shelter displaced families or are being used for military purposes. Low numbers of rehabilitated schools further hamper children’s access to learning. Classrooms are overcrowded and tens of thousands of teachers and other education personnel have left the country.
Half of the primary health care system in Syria remains offline. Two out of five sub-districts do not have functional primary health care facilities, forcing families to either delay medical care or take long trips if they can afford it. Only, 20,000 physicians remain in Syria. This translates into 2.4 health staff for every 1,000 people, compared to the international standards of 4.5 per 1,000.
Nearly two thirds of water treatment plants, half pumping stations and one third of water towers have been damaged because of the crisis. Nearly half of the people rely on alternative and often unsafe water sources to meet or complement their water needs and at least 70 per cent of the discharged sewage is untreated.
Climate change-induced land degradation, droughts, and water shortages, particularly in northern Syria, further worsen the prevailing vulnerabilities. They impact crops and agricultural livelihoods, limiting access to food and significantly skyrocket prices of food and basic supplies. Low water levels also threaten the power supply in the country. Poor water quality similarly tends to lead to more waterborne diseases, including diarrhoea, particularly among children. When children get sick and their immune system weakens, they become more susceptible to malnutrition. In Syria, stunting and wasting, micronutrient deficiencies and overweight are affecting 3.77 million children.
What will UNICEF do?
These factors combined underscore the imperative to support the availability and cost-effective delivery of the basic services – education, health, nutrition, child protection, and water, sanitation, and hygiene – at scale to support children and their families in Syria. The availability of adequate basic services is part of the humanitarian response.
To navigate the complex and continuously changing context and attain sustainable results for children, UNICEF – along with other UN agencies - seeks to make a shift in its programming towards early recovery while maintaining the delivery of humanitarian assistance based on needs on the ground. This will help strengthen the linkages between the needs-based emergency response and essential service restoration, socioeconomic resilience, and social cohesion.
Upholding the humanitarian principles, UNICEF will support integrated, multi-sectoral programming and improve sustained, equitable and safe access to critical basic services in areas where the needs are the highest. We will apply our comparative advantages –including our strong presence on the ground and our partnerships with local communities and organisations across multiple sectors – to reach more children and families.
With limited power and fuel supplies in the country, the services need to be climate smart. UNICEF will integrate climate resilience into its early recovery programming by adapting to increasing water scarcity and deteriorating water quality and investing in climate-resilient technologies and systems with a focus on renewable energies.
UNICEF’s experience from WASH programming in Syria underscores how investing in the rehabilitation of infrastructure not only improves the quality of the services but is also more cost-effective in the long run. UNICEF will focus on restoring water systems cost-effectively and ensuring further deterioration of these systems stops. UNICEF will also help set up local supply chains and integrate climate resilience in its programming.
In education, UNICEF will shift the bulk of its investments into cognitive and capacity building efforts to promote learning and sustain the resilience of families, schools, and communities. UNICEF will continue leading efforts to support rehabilitating schools, setting up curriculum and training personnel to keep children catching up and learning.
UNICEF will continue scaling up the use of unconditional cash transfers for the most vulnerable children – including children with disabilities and children in poor urban areas. Linking cash assistance to case management of individual children has shown to lead to a significant reduction in negative coping strategies in terms of cutting essential healthcare, education expenses and compromising food intake for children.
To advance its role in primary health care, UNICEF will help to equip of health workers and community volunteers with up to date the knowledge and skills to provide an integrated package of primary health care as well as continue supporting key partners, especially in the most heavily affected areas.
UNICEF will also engage local communities for social and behavioural change. To bolster children’s routine immunization coverage in a context with a limited supply of electricity, UNICEF will similarly support the effective functioning of Syria’s cold chain system through solar refrigerators and other climate resilient solutions to protect the cold chain.
To prevent the longer-term negative impact of malnutrition on children’s growth and brain development, UNICEF plans to scale up its preventive nutrition programmes. This will also help build the capacity of frontline health workers and community volunteers to reach caregivers with awareness on adequate infant and young child feeding practices.
As part of the shift towards early recovery, UNICEF aims to reach children at scale and accelerate the development of a national child protection system to protect the most vulnerable children. This will include developing a specialized and multi-sectoral case management system for children, survivors of violence, abuse, and exploitation and building a strong social service workforce with resources to provide integrated child protection and social services for children.
To continue providing Syrian children with critical assistance for their survival and their future, UNICEF needs US$ 334.4 million for 2022, with a current gap of US$245.7 million. UNICEF will continue to respond to the needs of children wherever they are across Syria and support systems preventing their collapse. Flexible, unearmarked and multi-year funding is essential to ensure assistance can be provided consistently and in predictable way to all children, regardless of where they are.
Children in Syria cannot wait until a political solution to the crisis has been reached. It is our collective responsibility to reaffirm to children that their future is our priority too. We will leave no stone unturned to help and support them, to overcome and recover, be stronger and well-equipped with the skills they need to rebuild their country when peace returns.
#EveryDayCounts