2015 ANNUAL REPORT Iraq “ Children should be the first to benefit from mankind’s successes and the last to suffer from its failures ... For it is on how we bring up our children that our civilization is measured, our humanity is tested and our future is shaped.” —JAMES P. GRANT UNICEF EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR (1980–95) Uganda LEADERSHIP LETTER Now, more than ever, children first. When UNICEF and others called 2014 “the worst year ever for children,” it was hard to imagine that 2015 could be equally challenging. It has been, and UNICEF has risen to the challenge. From earthquakes in Nepal and the terrifying Ebola epidemic in West Africa, to the conflicts and migrant crises in the Middle East, North Africa and Europe that only seem to intensify, UNICEF has delivered lifesaving care and a promise to every child: We will never give up on your future. It is clear: UNICEF is about much more than responding to crises. The commitment to sustainable change is truly creating a better world for children, one that can outlast any natural disaster or war. Recent milestones validate this approach: Africa is free of polio for the first time in its history; mothers in India no longer need to fear losing newborns to tetanus; the child mortality rate, although still high, continues to plummet; and more than 90 percent of the world’s population can access safe, clean drinking water. UNICEF has played a significant role in these achievements and will continue to lead the charge until every child is provided the chance for a healthy, happy, safe future. The U.S. Fund for UNICEF’s supporters and partners make UNICEF’s work possible — 486,291 individuals along with 11,179 partner corporations, NGOs, schools and clubs supported the U.S. Fund in Fiscal Year 2015. We are determined to grow and deepen that support further — a resolve that can be seen in both our new UNICEF Kid Power program and our Black History Month campaign — so that UNICEF can meet future challenges and move forward with its vision of a world in which every child can survive and thrive. Thank you for supporting that vision. Thank you for putting children first. UNICEF HELPED PROTECT 5.6 MILLION CHILDREN Vincent J. Hemmer Caryl M. Stern Chair President and CEO AND YOUNG PEOPLE FROM ARMED VIOLENCE IN 2014. 4 U.S. FUND FOR UNICEF | UNICEFUSA.ORG Serbia Child Survival protective services was vital. UNICEF UNICEF’s commitment to child survival is maintained water supplies and immunization best evidenced by one fact: More children are programs amid extraordinary challenges, and surviving early childhood than ever before. UNICEF Child-Friendly Spaces became UNICEF’s 2015 progress report on child sanctuaries where children could receive survival, A Promise Renewed, revealed that critical support and counseling. In Syria, global child mortality rates are plummeting where the now-chronic conflict entered a and that UNICEF and partners’ efforts to brutal fifth year, more than 760,000 children combat malaria, measles, malnutrition, and adolescents received access to psycho- pneumonia and other leading preventable social support. In 2015, safe drinking water, causes of death have helped save nearly 50 improved sanitation and critical hygiene million children under 5 since 2000. supplies were provided to 12 million people. In UNICEF’s commitment can be seen in South South Sudan and the Central African Sudan in the lifesaving treatments it has Republic, UNICEF worked to achieve the provided to some 100,000 severely release of thousands of children forced into malnourished children since January 2015; in armed groups. And when violence in Yemen its distribution of 26 million anti-malarial, rapidly placed 10 million children in need of insecticide-treated mosquito nets in 2014; and immediate assistance, UNICEF stood at the in its efforts across more than 100 countries to frontlines of the humanitarian operation, improve water supplies, sanitation facilities treating children for malnutrition, providing and hygiene practices, helping the world meet health support for pregnant women and the Millennium Development Goal of halving maintaining access to water and health care the number of people without sustainable as the country’s infrastructure disintegrated. access to safe water. UNICEF also strengthened its response to the educational needs of children in conflict- Children in Conflict affected countries — with 13 million children In the last year, UNICEF has responded to forced from school in the Middle East and extraordinary crises that imperiled tens of North Africa alone — expanding access to millions of children in the Central African e-learning, informal education and temporary Republic, Gaza, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, South learning spaces and working to ensure that Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and elsewhere. the dream of education did not die for children Providing both basic necessities and whose lives had been upended by conflict. Confronting some of the most devastating crises in recent memory, UNICEF supported millions of children and families around the world last year. UNICEF STOOD READY TO DELIVER LIFESAVING SUPPLIES TO CHILDREN UNICEF’S IN EMERGENCIES ALMOST ANYWHERE WORK IN THE WORLD WITHIN 72 HOURS. 6 U.S. FUND FOR UNICEF | UNICEFUSA.ORG ANNUAL REPORT 2015 | U.S. FUND FOR UNICEF 7 UNICEF’S WORK Ebola Europe would soon capture the world’s From the epidemic’s inception, UNICEF attention, UNICEF had been working Guinea played a significant role in the international throughout the year to provide for children’s effort to stem the West African Ebola needs in the most affected regions: Syria’s outbreak, which caused more than 11,000 shattered cities; the refugee camps and deaths and disrupted millions of lives. In settlements in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, UNICEF Turkey; and other areas where the mass helped mount massive social mobilization displacement of children received less efforts to raise awareness of safe health coverage. In northern Nigeria, for example, practices. With the backing of local the Boko Haram insurgency forced nearly 1.2 communities, religious leaders and traditional million children from their homes — more healers, these efforts had tremendous impact. than half under five years old — and UNICEF A major provider of supplies, UNICEF worked to assist the displaced inside Nigeria delivered more than 5,500 metric tons, from as well as in Cameroon, Chad and Niger. In protective gear to IV fluids (the largest such Ukraine, where almost 1.6 million people were operation in UNICEF’s history), as well as internally displaced — including more than facilitated critical water access for Ebola 200,000 children — UNICEF helped more treatment units. UNICEF also established than 885,000 people gain access to safe water protection and care mechanisms for affected and provided essential hygiene supplies. In children, helping to train a network of adult Central America, UNICEF continued to survivors as foster caregivers for child provide programs to address the root causes of survivors and orphans. Ebola deprived child migration — extreme violence and 5 million children of months of schooling. To poverty — as well as to assist and protect the get them back on track, UNICEF helped enroll thousands of children being repatriated. more than 3.3 million students in schools, trained almost 31,000 teachers in Ebola Natural Disasters prevention and distributed learning kits for In March 2015, when Cyclone Pam wreaked more than 1.9 million children. havoc on the remote Pacific island nation of supplements and newborn care and ensured Times reported on August 11. This historic Vanuatu — and the neighboring archipelagos that some 17,700 children received learning victory over a highly infectious virus testifies Child Refugee Crisis — UNICEF’s humanitarian response was materials. UNICEF mobilized again in April, to UNICEF’s leadership and continued Conflict, violence and economic desperation swift and effective. More than 82,000 when a 7.8-magnitude earthquake devastated efforts toward worldwide polio eradication as combined to create a crisis of unprecedented children needed immediate assistance, Nepal, leaving hundreds of thousands Nigeria and Somalia both marked full years scale with an estimated 30 million children on including access to clean water, sanitation and homeless and endangering more than 1 without a single case of wild polio. U.S. Fund the run. While the tragic refugee crisis in health care. UNICEF also provided nutrient million children. The response included for UNICEF partners The Bill & Melinda immunization for more than 50,000 children Gates Foundation and Rotary International against polio, measles and rubella; temporary contributed mightily to this achievement. hospitals and health centers set up to replace UNICEF’s effort to eliminate maternal and those destroyed by the quake; and food and neonatal tetanus (MNT) also passed access to clean water ensured for 500,000 significant milestones, with key support from children. Through a border checkpoint the U.S. Fund’s partnership with Kiwanis system, UNICEF also protected children from International. This past summer, a year’s trafficking and exploitation in the aftermath work culminated with the announcement of UNICEF HAS HELPED CUT THE NUMBER of the disaster. MNT’s elimination in India and Cambodia. OF POLIO-ENDEMIC COUNTRIES Systematic vaccination, midwife training Immunization, Polio and Tetanus and enhanced rural health care were critical FROM 125 (1988) TO 2 (TODAY) AND “It has been one full year since polio was to reaching these landmarks in child health. detected anywhere in Africa, a significant Globally, UNICEF procured vaccines for 40 REDUCE POLIO CASES BY 99 PERCENT. milestone in global health … ” The New York percent of the world’s children. n 8 U.S. FUND FOR UNICEF | UNICEFUSA.ORG ANNUAL REPORT 2015 | U.S. FUND FOR UNICEF 9 UNICEF’S WORK SYRIAN ARAB REPUBLIC: Number of Syrian children UNICEF IS WHERE affected by the five-year-old war exceeds 7.5 million, with more than 2 million CHILDREN ARE IN NEED child refugees.