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Humanitarian Action for Children 2024 - Ukraine and Refugee Response

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HIGHLIGHTS

  • The ongoing war in Ukraine continues to devastate the lives of children and families. Across Ukraine, 4.6 million people have returned, while more than 3.7 million remain internally displaced. Nearly 6 million refugees are hosted across Europe, 88 percent of them women and children, 3 and 5 million have applied for national protection schemes.

  • Children's mental health, learning and access to services (including health, water, electricity, heating) continue to be impacted. Many remain at risk of diseases, separation and violence (including genderbased violence).

  • In Ukraine, UNICEF is working with the Government and inter-agency partners to sustain critical humanitarian assistance in the south and east where war continues, while supporting recovery in the east, centre and west. In refugee-hosting countries, UNICEF is complementing national efforts, addressing residual humanitarian needs of those in protracted displacement while facilitating sustainable handover to national authorities.In this complex, protracted crisis, UNICEF remains agile and prepared to respond to changing conditions.

  • UNICEF requires $580.5 million to ensure crucial support for children and families in 2024. This includes critical supplies, services and support in child protection, health and nutrition, education, water, sanitation and hygiene and social protection (including humanitarian cash assistance); and strengthening national and local systems to address needs. The total amount requested includes $450 million for support inside Ukraine and $130.5 million for the refugee response.

HUMANITARIAN SITUATION AND NEEDS

Pillar 1: Ukraine

The prolonged war in Ukraine continues to have devastating consequences for the country’s children. War has heightened children’s risk of disease, family separation, violence (including gender-based violence), trafficking and unexploded ordnance. Since the onset of the war, 531 children have been killed and 911 children injured. Across the country, more than 3.7 million people are internally displaced, while 4.6 million people have returned to their place of origin, including 1.4 million who have returned to the east and south.14 Half of those who have returned to the east or south cited no accessible schools and a quarter cited insufficient public water supply, requiring systematic recovery efforts.

Active fighting threatens communities across a 1,000 km front line along the south and east. An estimated 2.9 million people16 live in front-line and non-government-controlled areas, facing intense shelling, damaged housing infrastructure and severe constraints to meeting their basic needs, including water, electricity and health services. Humanitarian access to families on the front lines remains limited, as does access to vulnerable families in nongovernment-controlled areas.

The war has had a tremendous impact on children’s mental health. Fifty-six percent of parents in eastern regions say their children are sometimes or often anxious or tense. Gender-based violence is believed to be on the rise. The upheaval of war has created an even more tenuous situation for displaced children, those unaccompanied and separated, those living in institutions and children with disabilities – including those now returning. Nearly 2 million students, or half of all students, remain reliant on online or blended education, with 2,321 schools across the front lines closed for safety reasons.

Fighting has destroyed more than 1,000 km of water networks across the country. The national water and sanitation system, 40 percent of which was in critical condition before the full-scale war, is on the brink of collapse. Up to 1 million people lost access to sustained, safe water after the destruction of Kakhovka Dam.

Attacks on energy infrastructure in the winter of 2022–2023 led to power outages that interrupted water networks and access to health and education services for 7 million children. These children spent a cumulative average of five weeks without power during the coldest months of the year. A potential repetition of these strikes during the 2023–2024 winter season would raise the already extremely high risks of acute respiratory diseases, seasonal influenza and waterborne diseases.

In line with the Government’s Recovery Plan and the interagency response plan, UNICEF will tailor its approach in Ukraine to meet the humanitarian and early recovery needs of children in 2024. UNICEF will focus 90 percent of its humanitarian efforts in the east and south, where the war is ongoing, providing life-saving assistance to children and families to meet critical needs. This is based on a mixed approach, including provision of supplies through humanitarian convoys, and delivery of health, nutrition, water sanitation and hygiene, child protection and education services and humanitarian cash through implementing partners.

In the centre and west, the needs of children, including recent returnees, will be addressed through focused humanitarian response, alongside accelerated recovery efforts. UNICEF will focus on strengthening national systems, aligning institutional frameworks on children’s rights with international standards, and piloting child-centred recovery programming.

In health and nutrition, UNICEF will support the national vaccination system through mobile teams, 30 to reach children in front-line areas, and promote infant and young child feeding practices. The water, sanitation and hygiene response will prioritize access to safe water and sanitation, through rehabilitation of critical infrastructure, including in areas affected by the Kakhovka Dam destruction, along with the provision of water treatment chemicals and hygiene supplies.
UNICEF will expand access to a minimum package of protection services for children and women, including integrated social services, mental health and psychosocial support, individual case management and mine victim assistance.
Family-based care will be prioritized, through the Better Care model. In coordination with refugee-hosting countries and UNICEF offices across the region, orderly and safe return of children, particularly those without parental care and with disabilities, will be a priority, based on the best interest of the child.

Education and early learning will be supported for war-affected children, including through repair of infrastructure, improvements to digital systems and by addressing mental health, focusing on the needs of the most vulnerable children. Humanitarian cash transfers will target vulnerable households in affected areas, providing flexible funding to meet diverse needs. Children and families will receive life-saving explosive ordnance risk education and information on access to services, hygiene, immunization and deinstitutionalization. UNICEF will use feedback mechanisms to adapt to needs of affected populations.

Considering the volatile nature of the war, emergency preparedness will be central to UNICEF's planning, ensuring rapid capacities in arising situations and adequate contingency supplies, including in response to any further strikes on energy infrastructure. Humanitarian–development nexus recovery programming will be introduced as regions stabilize.

UNICEF will reinforce gender-transformative programming and protection from sexual exploitation and abuse across programmes. To enhance coordination, UNICEF will lead the WASH, Child Protection and Education Clusters, in partnership with Government and humanitarian partners, and contribute to the cash working group, co-chairing task teams where relevant.

Pillar 2: Refugee Response

After almost two years of war, the Ukraine refugee crisis remains one of the largest displacement crises worldwide. Nearly 6 million refugees from Ukraine – approximately 88 percent of them women and children – are currently hosted across Europe. Some 5 million have applied for national protection schemes. Among refugees, 23 percent of households indicate at least one member with specific needs. 34 The rate of family separation is 70 percent, exposing children to additional risks, including sexual violence, trafficking, exploitation and abuse and gender-based violence. In 2024, barring unexpected developments, newly displaced refugee movements into Europe are expected to decrease significantly.

Households with specific vulnerabilities, such as persons with disabilities or from minority groups, encounter difficulties in accessing services and protection schemes, thus facing higher protection and poverty risks. The protracted situation is diminishing refugees' coping abilities and overwhelming the capacity of national and local structures, leaving gaps for particular groups in the adequacy and timing of benefits. As humanitarian aid scales down, potential for returns in adverse conditions and risks of resorting to harmful coping mechanisms, including gender-specific risks, increase.

In 2024, an integrated response is required to address residual humanitarian needs and link humanitarian support and recovery for refugee children and families. Key concerns remain around access to education, specifically early learning and secondary education; child protection and crossborder support to safeguard unaccompanied and separated children and children evacuated from institutional care facilities; mental health and psychosocial support, especially for adolescents; genderbased violence-related issues; and ensuring that low-income refugee households and children with disabilities are included in national social protection schemes.

Current school enrolment rates of Ukrainian children in European Union countries average 40–50 per cent, mainly due to persistent hesitancy by parents, lack of physical space and learning infrastructure, teacher shortages, insufficiencies in preparatory classes and language support. Consequently, thousands of children and youth are at risk of remaining out of school for a third year. A key priority is bringing refugee children and youth back into formal face-to-face education where they can benefit from long-term stability in education, social interaction with host communities and in-school support.

While the European Union Temporary Protection Directive has been effective in response to the mass arrival of refugees from Ukraine, inconsistent implementation across Member States led to more restrictive realities, preventing refugees from effectively accessing legal status, rights and protection in host countries. Some minority groups and third-country nationals have been denied access to rights under the directive.

As the war enters its third year and host communities face increasing costs of living, additional burdens on services and housing, political polarization and other socioeconomic challenges, their support to refugees may decrease. Countering disinformation and shaping the narrative to promote peaceful coexistence remain key.

In refugee-hosting countries, UNICEF, humanitarian partners and national and municipal authorities – under the overall leadership of host governments – have supported and complemented national responses through coordinated and inclusive interventions. However, public resources and national systems are increasingly stretched thin.
In 2024, UNICEF activities and resources will address residual humanitarian needs in refugee-hosting countries, focusing on sustainable handover to national institutions and closing out partnerships and activities that are no longer essential.

Specifically, UNICEF will continue its efforts to systematically identify persons with specific needs and provide targeted assistance, including through individual case management, cash programming, prevention and response to genderbased violence and holistic inclusion initiatives (e.g., effective inclusion in education systems and social protection programmes). UNICEF’s targeted support will complement or enhance government services for women and children with specific needs. Minimum capacities to ensure immediate assistance to new arrivals and scale up in case of new movements will be maintained.

UNICEF will sustain efforts to strengthen the resilience of host governments by building national and subnational capacity and increasing multisectoral programming with local authorities. These system-strengthening strategies will ensure integration and continuity of the response by host countries in the longer term.

UNICEF and partners will continue to support Ukrainian refugee enrolment in national education systems and provide multiple, flexible learning pathways to ensuring smooth transitions, ongoing learning support and Ukrainian curriculum continuity for those nearing completion or unable to join host schools.

Child protection programmes will focus on strengthening national prevention and response, while supporting individual case management and large-scale psychosocial and parenting activities in vulnerable refugee and host communities. UNICEF will strengthen the capacities of social workforces to promote the rights of refugee children. Access to adequate social protection measures, including timely, predictable, life-saving financial benefits will be ensured for refugee households, with particular focus on those with children with disabilities.

Protection from sexual exploitation and abuse and genderbased violence risk mitigation will be mainstreamed through capacity building, raising awareness and increasing accessibility of reporting channels. UNICEF will improve its accountability to affected populations by strengthening established feedback mechanisms; and support community engagement and mobilization to improve access to and quality of services and mitigate misinformation and risks.
In 2024, UNICEF will continue to play a crucial role in fostering dialogues and collaborations between the Government of Ukraine and hosting governments on issues such as the deinstitutionalization agenda in child protection, children’s access to learning within national education systems and social cohesion.