More than 1.3 million five-in-one vaccines will be available to Somali children this year. Each child will require three doses before his or her first birthday.

NEW YORK, 19 April 2013 – One and a half million children would not have died in 2011 had they been immunized, according to UNICEF at the start of World Immunization Week. But one in five children is not being reached with vital vaccines due to social or geographical exclusion, lack of resources, weak health systems or conflicts such as those raging today in Syria and parts of West Africa.

Mogadishu, 13 March 2013 – The Japanese Government has contributed USD 15 million to help UNICEF address a wide range of urgent needs for children in Somalia. The grant will support nutrition, food security, health, education, child protection, water, sanitation and hygiene efforts for the most vulnerable children.

The funds will provide text books for 300,000 children - half of which are girls. It will allow 500,000 women and children to access health services and 60,000 severely malnourished children will receive therapeutic feeding.

THE SITUATION

For two decades Somalia has experienced violence, conflict and lawlessness which have exacerbated poverty and hardship, undermined social and economic development and made it challenging for the international community to address humanitarian and development priorities.

Consecutive years of harsh droughts and ongoing conflict have resulted in repeated crop failure, depleted livestock, rising food prices and deteriorating purchasing power.

Prefacio del Director Ejecutivo

Acción Humanitaria para la Infancia 2013

A primera vista, Fatima aparentaba tener unos 4 o 5 meses. Pero, en realidad, acababa de cumplir su primer año de vida. Estaba entre los 126.000 niños con desnutrición aguda grave tratados en uno de los 425 centros nutricionales establecidos por el Ministerio de Salud de Chad en 2012 como parte de la expansión de la atención en todo el Sahel. Se llegó a cientos de miles de niños con la atención necesaria para salvar sus vidas. Tristemente, no se pudo llegar a otros muchos.

UNICEF has appealed for almost US$1.4 billion to meet the immediate, life-saving needs of children in 45 countries and regions gripped by conflict, natural disasters and other complex emergencies this year.

By Thomas Nybo

DADAAB, Kenya, 20 December 2012 – It’s been years since Fatima Suthi has seen rain. The 51-year-old mother of eight lives near the Dadaab refugee camp in northeastern Kenya.

Ms. Suthi has been struggling to survive in a land where water is scarce. Drought here has killed all of her livestock and forced her, like other pastoralist families, to adjust.

With water comes hope

UNICEF and the Ministries of Education in Puntland and Somaliland have put education reform in the spotlight through the launch of the School Census Statistics Year Book 2011/2012.

Sometimes soldiers take over a school entirely, but often they use just a part of the school or university and in doing so expose students to attacks and other violence.