Climate change

Multilateral climate funds have a key role to play in agenda-setting and in catalysing and coordinating investments which are necessary to respond to the climate crisis. Falling short: addressing the climate finance gap for children is a study analysing how ‘child responsive’ projects funded by key multilateral climate funds are – over a 17-year…

Safe water is essential to life itself. Proper sanitation and hygiene prevent the spread of disease and infection, and ensure human dignity. Without these essential services, the most basic needs of children’s lives are unmet. Globally, 600 million children still lack safely managed drinking water, 1.1 billion lack safely managed sanitation and…

Ten million children in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger are in dire need of humanitarian assistance – twice as many as in 2020 – largely due to spiralling conflict, while nearly 4 million children are at risk in neighbouring countries as hostilities between armed groups and national security forces spill across borders. 'Extreme Jeopardy' looks at…, Benin. Two brothers sit outside their home in Tanguieta, northern Benin. Two brothers sit outside their home in Tanguieta, northern Benin., What’s happening in the central Sahel? , Caught between armed groups, national security operations and intercommunal violence children are finding themselves directly targeted by non-state armed groups who operate across large areas of the region. 2022 was a particularly violent year for children in the central Sahel, almost certainly the deadliest since armed conflict broke out in…, The crisis is marked by attacks on infrastructure…, Burkina Faso. A girl drinks water from a tap at a playground in Burkina Faso. A girl drinks water from a tap at a playground in Burkina Faso. In Burkina Faso, attacks include sabotaging water networks – cutting power lines and destroying generators or electrical panels at pumping stations that feed urban water supply systems – and damaging manual…, …and education, Niger. A boy writes on a chalkboard in Niger. A boy writes on a chalkboard in Niger. Some armed groups that oppose state-administered education burn and loot schools, and threaten, abduct or kill teachers. By 2022, more than 8,300 schools had shut down across the central Sahel because they were directly targeted, teachers had fled, or because…, A changing climate is layering one crisis on top of another, Côte d'Ivoire. Women and children collect water in Tougbo, in the north of Côte d’Ivoire. Women and children collect water in Tougbo, in the north of Côte d’Ivoire. The central Sahel is one of the most climate-affected and water-scarce regions on the planet. Temperatures are rising 1.5 times faster than the global average. Water tables have…, It’s time to turn the page, Burkina Faso. A child waves at site for internally displaced persons. A child waves at a site for internally displaced children and families in Barsalogho, in the north central region of Burkina Faso. UNICEF urges governments across the central Sahel and affected coastal countries, along with technical and financial partners, to prioritize…, How UNICEF is helping, Burkina Faso. A boy walks into a school in Kaya, in the north central region of Burkina Faso. A boy walks into a school in Kaya, in the north central region of Burkina Faso. UNICEF has a large operational footprint in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, with almost 600 staff members working across the three national offices and 12 sub-offices, including…, Ten million children in the central Sahel need humanitarian assistance amid spiralling conflict and punishing climate. U NIC EF/ UN 05 381 08 /Ke ta EXTREME JEOPARDY UNICEF | CHILD ALERT | March 2023 BeninGhana TogoCte dIvoire BurkinaFaso NigerMali EXTREME JEOPARDY: TEN MILLION CHILDREN IN THE CENTRAL SAHEL NEED HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE AMID…

The effects of water scarcity on business, people and the planet are interlinked. Securing an adequate supply of clean water despite the damage inflicted by climate change is one of the world’s most urgent challenges. Individual corporate initiatives are not enough. Water scarcity is a complex systemic problem and requires a three-pronged climate…

The climate crisis is rapidly accelerating and with it, heatwaves are becoming longer, stronger, more widespread and more frequent. Already, around 559 million children are exposed to high heatwave frequency and around 624 million children are exposed to one of three other high heat measures - high heatwave duration, high heatwave severity or…

Goal Area 4 of the 2018-2021 UNICEF Strategic Plan encompasses four results areas: (1) WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene), (2) disaster risk reduction, resilience strengthening and peacebuilding, (3) urban programming and local governance, and (4) climate, energy and the environment. Good progress was made across all of these areas despite the…, UNICEF set its most ambitious WASH target ever for the 2018–2021 Strategic Plan: to reach 60 million people with water and sanitation services in their communities through direct support. The target was achieved, an exceptional result given the operational challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. GARR2021-Goal-are-4-figure-1 Number of additional…, girl-drinking-water Disaster risk reduction, resilience strengthening and peacebuilding, UNICEF helps to reduce the risk of disasters and strengthen resilience in the countries where it works, investing more than US$250 million across 150 countries over the 2018-2021 period. In 2021, UNICEF helped strengthen early warning systems in 27 countries, supported the updating of 44 preparedness plans and provided risk-assessment support for…, children-filling-water-can Urban programming and local governance, Over the four-year Strategic Plan period, UNICEF expanded its engagement in local governance and urban programming in response to increasing inequities within countries and deepening deprivations that affect children in their communities. UNICEF supported urban-specific interventions in over 100 countries globally and has engaged with 3,845…, youth-planting-tree Climate, energy and the environment, The climate and environment crisis is a crisis for children, threatening their development and their very existence. In 2021, UNICEF released the Children’s Climate Risk Index, the first global atlas of climate and environmental risk from a child right’s perspective, showing that almost every child is now exposed to at least one climate or…, smiling-girl-holding-water-can Looking forward, The new UNICEF 2022-2025 Strategic Plan defines how UNICEF will contribute to child-related SDGs over the next four years, defining the pathways to achieve an inclusive recovery from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and, ultimately, the realization of a society in which every child is included and has agency, opportunity and their rights…, Read more and support our work, June 2022, Global Annual Results Report 2021 GOAL AREA 4 Every child lives in a safe and clean environment Cover image: UNICEF/UN0560201/Dubourthoumieu Souza Mbomba, 19 years old, draws water from a new spring-sourced water system developed with the support of UNICEF in Mutonji district, Kasai Oriental province, the Democratic Republic of the Congo.…

Research has shown that climate change has a disproportionate impact on girls and women. Yet, despite this, their voices are not adequately represented in climate discussions, resulting in policies that do not address their specific needs.  This needs to change.  To amplify girls’ and young women’s voices, the World Association of Girl Guides and…

Today, the world is facing compounding humanitarian, environmental and economic crises that have spurred the migration and displacement of millions of children and their families. The number of internally displaced children, refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers and in some cases, returnees, has grown dramatically and is only set to increase in…

Climate change is already a direct challenge to children’s rights and well-being. One billion children – nearly half of children globally – are at ‘extremely high risk’ of its impacts . They face a deadly combination of exposure to multiple climate shocks and limited access to services that build their resilience. The climate is changing…

The climate crisis is a child rights crisis  presents the Children’s Climate Risk Index (CCRI), which uses data to generate new global evidence on how many children are currently exposed to climate and environmental hazards, shocks and stresses. A composite index, the CCRI brings together geographical data by analyzing 1.) exposure to climate and…, August 2021, The climate crisis is a child rights crisisIntroducing THE CHILDRENS CLIMATE RISK INDEX . Published by UNICEFDivision of Communication3 United Nations PlazaNew York, NY 10017, USA Contact: pubdoc@unicef.org Website: www.unicef.org Suggested citation. The Climate Crisis is a Child Rights Crisis:: Introducing the Childrens Climate Risk Index. New…

Today, 1.42 billion people – including 450 million children – live in areas of high or extremely high water vulnerability. Less than 3 per cent of the world’s water resources is freshwater, and it is growing increasingly scarce. Decades of misuse, poor management, over-extraction of groundwater and contamination of freshwater supplies have…

The scientific community has sounded the alarm. Climate change is a global emergency and we have little more than a decade to undertake the urgent and unprecedented action required to limit global temperatures to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Beyond that time, the risks of deadly drought, flooding, heatwaves, extreme weather and poverty will…