An appeal of almost 2 billion dollars was made on Friday by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to provide lifesaving assistance to more than 24 million boys and girls across West and Central Africa in 2024.
It estimated that 46.7 million children in the region would face another year of humanitarian need due to ongoing conflict in Central Sahel, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and displacements into Chad sparked by the war in Sudan.
Felicité Tchibindat, UNICEF Regional Director, said, “West and Central Africa is home to a large number of critically underfunded emergencies and some of the most neglected humanitarian crises in the world for children.”
Aid will include lifesaving nutrition supplies, clean water, education, and child protection services, as well as humanitarian cash transfers for households.
The 1.89 billion-dollar appeal aims to reach roughly 24.1 million children next year, up from 23.5 million in 2023. More than a third of the funding will be used to address malnutrition, as the prevalence of wasting in children under five remains high. The Sahel countries are most affected, with several areas of Burkina Faso, Mali, and northwest Nigeria showing emergency levels of child wasting.
An urge for the global leaders to heed to scientific evidence on climate change and accelerate the shift to renewable energy sources was made by the outgoing head of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), Petteri Taalas.
He ended his tenure as WMO Secretary-General on Friday, a post he assumed since 2016 and was at the helm of the UN agency over the warmest eight-year period in recorded history.
He said,
“The expertise and services of WMO and the scientific community have never been more necessary to tackle climate change, which represents humanity’s biggest challenge,”
He also issued a request to world leaders, saying, “Please pay attention to the scientific evidence and listen to the United Nations, which is committed to promoting the welfare of citizens worldwide.”
Taalas hailed the agreement reached at the recent COP28 climate change conference in Dubai as historic because it recognised the need to transition from fossil fuels, and a need to reduce our production and consumption of fossil fuels and speed up the transition to renewable energy.
Ugochi Olivia Ubah is an Educator and a Writer
