Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, UNICEF has managed to mobilize more than $1 billion to help young Ukrainians, said Munir Mammadzadeh, head of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Ukraine.
“We were in the country before the war, our mandate covered development and humanitarian issues. That is, we were already working and had a presence in the regions, which helped us to launch a full-fledged response to the full-scale war and attract additional resources to help children as much as possible. During this time, we have managed to mobilize more than $1 billion for Ukraine and neighboring countries where Ukrainians have started to move because of the war,” he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
According to Mammadzadeh, UNICEF’s request for humanitarian aid for Ukraine for this year is $496 million, and 70% of this amount has been funded, which shows the interest of donor countries in supporting Ukraine. He noted that it is often impossible to attract more than 50%.
In addition, in addition to humanitarian aid to the needy, UNICEF also has programmatic activities related to development, recovery and other areas. “We are now clearly distinguishing between what is humanitarian activity – saving lives – and what is part of our development work,” said Mammadzade.
According to him, next year UNICEF plans to reduce the humanitarian request by 20% compared to this year and increase plans and requests for systemic work, i.e. the development component of the mandate, which includes social protection issues.
