Press releases
UNICEF and WHO call for emergency action to avert major measles and polio epidemics
6 November 2020 – UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) today issued an urgent call to action to avert major measles and polio epidemics as COVID-19 continues to disrupt immunization services worldwide.
Nearly half a million children in Nicaragua at risk from Hurricane Eta
3 November 2020 – Hurricane Eta hit Nicaragua early Tuesday as a powerful Category 4 storm, potentially impacting 1,227,000 people.
Children in the poorest countries have lost nearly four months of schooling since start of pandemic – UNESCO, UNICEF and World Bank report finds
29 October 2020 – Schoolchildren in low-and lower-middle-income countries have already lost nearly four months of schooling since the start of the pandemic, compared to six weeks of loss in high-income countries, according to a new report published today by UNESCO, UNICEF and the World Bank.
UNICEF Statement on impact of Storm Molave in Vietnam
28 October 2020 – Storm Molave, which today battered Viet Nam’s central coastal region, is one of the strongest storms to hit the country in 20 years, according to the country’s meteorological agency. Molave.
UNICEF Statement on the killing of two humanitarian workers in Mogadishu, Somalia
27th October 2020 - Statement from Jesper Moller, UNICEF Somalia Representative a.i.
UNICEF condemns attack on religious school in Peshawar
27 October 2020 - UNICEF strongly condemns the attack on a religious school which took place in Peshawar earlier today, reportedly killing at least seven people and injuring more than 75 -- some of them children and teachers.
Malnutrition surges among young children in Yemen as conditions worsen
27 October 2020 – Acute malnutrition rates among children under five are the highest ever recorded in parts of Yemen, with more than half a million cases in southern districts, according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Acute Malnutrition analysis released today by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme (WFP) and partners.
UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore's remarks at the Conference on Sustaining Support for the Rohingya Refugee Response
22 October 2020 - All remarks have been checked against delivery.
Over 1.5 million children at risk due to floods in central Viet Nam, says UNICEF
22 October, 2020 - Widespread flooding and landslides in 5 provinces in central Viet Nam, have left more than 1.5 million children at risk of disease, poor nutrition and delayed development.
1 in 6 children lives in extreme poverty, World Bank-UNICEF analysis shows
An estimated 1 in 6 children – or 356 million globally – lived in extreme poverty before the pandemic, and this is set to worsen significantly, according to a new World Bank Group-UNICEF analysis released today.
UN agencies warn that acute food insecurity and nutrition crisis are surging in the Central Sahel
20 October 2020 – Three UN agencies are calling for greater stabilization efforts and assistance to the most vulnerable in Burkina Faso, Mali and the Niger.
BRIEFING NOTE ON THE CENTRAL SAHEL
The multiple crises converging in the Central Sahel, including a surge in armed violence and the socio-economic fallout from COVID-19, is worsening conditions for children in one of the world’s poorest, least-developed regions.
Unicef UK confirms launch of independent review
Unicef UK statement on 8 October 2020
UN agencies launch “Learning is Back”, a song on return to learning in the Middle East and North Africa
8 October 2020 - UN Agencies*[1] in the region unveiled today “Rej’et El Sineh” [‘Learning is Back’], a song to encourage the return to learning for all children and youth across the region.
One stillbirth occurs every 16 seconds, according to first ever joint UN estimates
8 October 2020– Almost 2 million babies are stillborn every year – or 1 every 16 seconds – according to the first ever joint stillbirth* estimates released by UNICEF, WHO, the World Bank Group and the Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
Only 1 in 3 countries have re-opened school in West and Central Africa
7 October 2020 – UNICEF calls on Ministries of Education and Finance today to prioritize education in their coronavirus recovery plans to reduce the negative impact of the COVID-19 crisis on children and national economies.
Unrelenting violence continues to impact children in Ituri, eastern DRC
6 October 2020 – UNICEF continues to be deeply concerned about thousands of children at risk amid unrelenting violence in Ituri, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
UNICEF calls for the resumption of salary payments for schoolteachers in Yemen
5 October, 2020 – This World Teachers’ Day, UNICEF, together with the Global Partnership for Education, Education Cannot Wait and UNESCO, is calling for the resumption of salary payments for around half of the Yemeni teachers and school-based staff (estimated 160,000) who have not received regular salary payments since 2016.