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BSS-16
UNICEF-EXPENDITURE-2017
UNICEF spends US$ 550m responding to humanitarian crises in 2017
DHAKA, June 28, 2018 (BSS) – UNICEF spent over US$ 550 million to deliver
emergency and life-saving supplies to children in urgent need of assistance
last year since famine, droughts, conflict and malnutrition threatened the
survival of millions in 2017.
This is the agency’s highest expenditure on supplies for humanitarian
crises, according to an UNICEF press release received here today.
In 2017, drought and armed conflict devastated children’s lives in South
Sudan, Yemen, Somalia and north-east Nigeria, the release said, adding some
22 million children were left hungry, sick, displaced and out of school in
the four countries while nearly 1.4 million children were at imminent risk of
death from severe malnutrition.
In response, UNICEF sent US$ 122.4 million worth of nutritional products,
including Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food, milk, high-energy biscuits and
anthropometric equipment to weigh and measure children.
In the Horn of Africa, where droughts exacerbated a large-scale nutrition
crisis, UNICEF delivered nearly a quarter of its global therapeutic food to
save hundreds of thousands of children affected by acute malnutrition.
More than half of this product was manufactured by local suppliers in
countries where UNICEF has nutrition programmes, which helped improve
efficiency and support local markets.
Besides nutrition-related supplies, UNICEF also sent life-saving water
and sanitation supplies, vaccines and pharmaceuticals, as well as education
and clothing items to children and families caught in, or displaced by
conflict, natural disasters and other crises across 61 countries.
Most emergency supplies went to the Rohingya people in Bangladesh, Yemen,
the Horn of Africa, Syria, the Lake Chad region and South Sudan.
To serve Rohingya people in Bangladesh, logistics services were rapidly
put in place, while water, sanitation and health supplies were delivered to
deal with simultaneous cholera outbreaks around the world.
In Yemen alone, where almost 22 million people were affected by food
insecurity and a crumbling health system, UNICEF provided over 900 million
purification tablets, 1,800 acute watery diarrhea kits and 33 million doses
of vaccines.
In 2017, UNICEF and its partners also substantially reduced vaccine prices,
the release said, adding that for the first time, a full round of vaccines
for a child under the age of one is available at under US$ 18 for low-income
countries – down from the 2013 price of US$ 24.46.
In total, UNICEF procured US$ 3.46 billion worth of supplies and services
for children in 150 countries and areas last year.
UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s
most disadvantaged children. It works across 190 countries and territories
for every child, everywhere, to build a better world for everyone.
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