UNICEF continues work amid under-funding

UNICEF’s operations in Guinea have remained largely under-funded six months after an appeal for money, the UN agency said in its ‘Guinea Donor Update’ of 27 July. Despite this, UNICEF has conducted numerous humanitarian activities in Guinea to ease the plight of refugees, IDPs and host communities affected by insecurity in Guinea and neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone, it said. Water-sanitation and child protection programmes have been the most underfunded. They have received no new money since UNICEF appealed for US $2.39 million for operations under a consolidated appeal for West Africa launched in February. The agency has, nevertheless, been able to refurbish 4,000 water points, including 42 new ones, and 1,000 latrines to prevent cholera and diarrhoea. Since January, UNICEF has also focused on preventing mealses, cholera and diarrhoea. More than 400,000 children between the ages of nine months and 15 years have been immunised against measles in six areas while similar efforts are underway in another four. A total of some 1.1 children will have been vaccinated by early August, the agency said. UNICEF also reported that malnutrition was widespread. Norway, however, has donated six mt of rice. The agency has been able to conduct its health and nutrition activities with funds amounting to 48 percent of the US $1.76 million which it had appealed for. “If new additional resources are not mobilised, there is a risk of increasing mortality rates for the next months,” UNICEF said. “Efforts to maintain education for 30,000 children will also be in jeopardy.”