UNICEF seeks US $9.2 million for this year

UNICEF is seeking US $9.2 million to implement its humanitarian programmes in Sierra Leone in the year 2000, according to a UNICEF news release. UNICEF plans in the West African country include rehabilitating the primary health care system and reducing child malnutrition in five key districts affected by an influx of displaced persons. Eradicating polio, improving vaccination coverage to 90 percent for all children under the age of one year and building and/or rehabilitating low-cost water and sanitation facilities are also among its aims. In the education sector, UNICEF seeks to enable 300,000 children to return to formal primary school and to provide non-formal education to 100,000 war-affected children. Children with special needs, including some 5,000 child soldiers, 10,000 unaccompanied minors and other war-affected children are also targeted. In 1999, UNICEF raised US $5.12 million out of the US $7.75 million it had requested for its Sierra Leone programmes through the Consolidated Appeal process.