Press releases

GENEVA, 05 December 2025 – “Over the past months and in recent weeks, children across five countries in Southeast Asia – Indonesia, Viet Nam, Thailand, the Philippines, and Malaysia – have faced the devastating effects of typhoons, floods and storms.

London, Thursday 4 December 2025: Today the Child Poverty Taskforce has revealed their strategy to tackle child poverty in the UK - UNICEF UK responds.

Wednesday 26 November 2025, London: Today the Government has announced a full scrap of the harmful two-child limit policy on Universal Credit from April 2026. 

Geneva/New York/Copenhagen, 24 November 2025 – Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and UNICEF today announced a new agreement that will make the R21/Matrix-M™ malaria vaccines significantly more accessible and affordable, paving the way to protect more children from one of the world’s deadliest diseases.

DAKAR/ABUJA, 22 November 2025 – Scores of children and teachers were reportedly abducted from a secondary school in Niger State, Nigeria, in the early hours of Friday, just days after a separate attack in Kebbi State on Monday led to the abduction of 25 girls from a boarding school.

More than 1 in 5 children in low- and middle-income countries – or 417 million – are severely deprived in at least two vital areas critical for their health, development, and wellbeing, according to UNICEF’s flagship report issued on World Children’s Day today. Record numbers of children are living in poverty across the UK. The UK saw a 34% increase in relative child income poverty between 2013 and 2023. The UK has the highest increase in relative child income poverty of the 37 high-income countries reviewed.

PANAMA CITY, 17 November 2025 – Three weeks after Hurricane Melissa hit the Caribbean, nearly 477,000 children are experiencing significant disruptions to their schooling due to damaged or temporarily closed schools across Cuba, Haiti, and Jamaica.

JUBA/NEW YORK, 27 October 2025 – UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Liam Neeson visited South Sudan last week to see the impacts of economic shocks, climate change, poverty, and insecurity on children’s lives, especially girls, against a backdrop of severe global cuts to official development assistance.

PANAMA CITY, 26 October 2025 - As Hurricane Melissa is moving slowly across the Caribbean Sea, the winds, torrential rains, and flash flooding have put at least 1.6 million children at risk, according to UNICEF estimates.

AMMAN, 26 October 2025 – “Two weeks ago, the start of the latest ceasefire in the Gaza Strip delivered long-awaited relief for families, where it offers a vital chance for the survival, safety and dignity of children.

N'DJAMENA/NEW YORK 24 October 2025 – "Thank you for joining us.  I speak to you a day after leaving Darfur, following a mission that also took me to Khartoum."What I saw was alarming. Sudan is the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. The conflict is escalating, and children are paying the highest price.

GENEVA/NEW YORK/ROME/PORT SUDAN, 23 October 2025 – Four United Nations agencies today called for urgent international attention on the crisis in Sudan, to address the immense suffering and growing dangers to the population. Over 900 days of brutal fighting, widespread violations of human rights, famine, and the breakdown of life-sustaining services have pushed millions to the brink of survival, particularly women and children.

London, UK, October 10 2025 - UNICEF UK Ambassador Arlo Parks joined pupils at Moreland School in Islington for a Dove Self-Esteem Project workshop (DSEP) focused on building body confidence and self-esteem.

PORT-AU-PRINCE/NEW YORK, 9 October 2025 – The number of children displaced by violence in Haiti has almost doubled in the past year, with 680,000 now uprooted from their homes, according to a new UNICEF Child Alert report released today. Overall, more than 1.3 million people are displaced across the country as spiraling violence, collapsing services, and lack of humanitarian access push Haiti deeper into crisis. 

NEW YORK, 10 September 2025 – Obesity surpassed underweight as the more prevalent form of malnutrition this year, affecting 1 in 10 – or 188 million – school-aged children and adolescents, and placing them at risk of life-threatening disease, UNICEF warned in a new report today.

GENEVA/KYIV, 28 August 2025 – “A wave of deadly attacks hit Kyiv during the early hours of this morning – reportedly killing four children, including a toddler. At least 10 children were reportedly injured. The children were at home in their beds, trying to sleep.  

ADDIS ABABA — An estimated 8.2 percent of the global population, or about 673 million people, experienced hunger in 2024, down from 8.5 percent in 2023 and 8.7 percent in 2022. However, progress was not consistent across the globe, as hunger continued to rise in most subregions of Africa and western Asia, according to this year’s The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI 2025) report published today by five specialized agencies of the United Nations.

New UK Government data released today shows 1.6 million children are locked out of financial support due to the number of siblings they have, and the vast majority (1.1 million children) are living in families with a child or baby under 5 years old. 

“This strategy is a very welcome and essential step toward closing the inequalities gap in early childhood and will give children the best start in life that they all deserve, particularly in its recognition that poverty and inequality must be addressed in the early years. The commitment to invest in and bring together local services through Best Start Family Hubs is vital and will go a long way to meeting the needs of families with babies and young children.