Armenia Appeal
Humanitarian Action for Children
UNICEF’s Humanitarian Action for Children appeal helps support the agency’s work as it provides conflict- and disaster-affected children with access to water, sanitation, nutrition, education, health and protection services. Return to main appeal page.
Armenia snapshot
Appeal highlights
- Between 24 September 2023 and 31 March 2024, the Government of Armenia registered 115,243 ethnic Armenian refugees, including an estimated 36,000 children who fled due an escalation of hostilities. They joined around 26,700 people displaced during the 2020 conflict.
- Given continuing humanitarian needs of affected children and families uprooted from their homes and communities, UNICEF is extending its response until the end of 2024. Thereby, UNICEF will sustain and expand the scope of service provision in mental health and psychosocial support, child protection case management - including for children with disabilities, education, health and nutrition outreach and counselling services. UNICEF will also aim to support families with humanitarian cash to facilitate their integration and access to essential services.
- UNICEF now requires a total of US$14.3 million to reach 100,000 people (including 41,000 children) with critical humanitarian support 4 . Given the increase in the number of registered refugees in Armenia since October 2023 and the need to ensure service continuity, this revised appeal will enable UNICEF to sustain delivery of critical humanitarian assistance for refugee and host community children and families.
Key planned targets for 2023-2024
35,000 children/caregivers accessing community-based mental health and psychosocial support
25,000 children accessing formal or non-formal education, including early learning
11,500 households reached with UNICEF-funded humanitarian cash transfers (including for social protetion and other sectors)
50,000 people sharing their concerns and asking questions through established feedback mechanisms
Funding requirements for 2023-2024
Country needs and strategy
Humanitarian needs
Between 24 September 2023 and 31 March 2024, the Government of Armenia registered 115,243 ethnic Armenian refugees, including an estimated 36,000 children, who fled their home communities in the months preceding and then following an escalation of hostilities in late September 2023. Nearly 75 percent of this population live in Yerevan and surrounding regions (Kotayk, Ararat, and Armavir). Around 52 per cent are women and girls, 31 per cent are children, and 16 per cent are people with disabilities. They joined around 26,700 people, who were displaced during the previous escalation of hostilities in 2020. To date, the Government of Armenia has granted temporary protection to 78,005 refugees.
This influx of refugees into Armenia was unprecedented both in scale and pace: Over 100,000 refugees arrived between 24 September and 4 October 2023 through the city of Goris, home to 20,000 people, overwhelming local response capacities. Given the large refugee population compared to the national population (62 refugee children per every 1,000 national children), key services for children such as education, social services, health, and psychological support continue to remain overstretched. Since the onset of the crisis, the Government of Armenia has led the emergency response, which it has extended until the end of 2024. Given continued humanitarian needs, the Government has requested international organizations to complement its effort addressing the unmet gaps. UNICEF is committed to delivering support and upholding the rights and dignity of affected children and their families in line with the Core Commitments for Children in Humanitarian Action.
Refugee children who arrived in Armenia had experienced significant trauma, including from repeated military escalations and well as long periods of uncertainty and limited access to education, health, and other services. Children with disabilities still encounter specific challenges to access education and other essential services, that can be limited considering high demand and lack of community-based services throughout the country. A total of 30 children were unaccompanied or separated on arrival; 23 of them were reunified with their families or placed in family-type care. The need for mental health and psychosocial support remains high. As of 28 March 2024, about 80 percent of refugee children are enrolled in schools and five hundred refugee teachers are currently working in schools across the country. While the Government is committed to full enrolment, concerns remain especially over access to pre-school as well as dropout among adolescents. Despite several cash assistance programmes being rapidly rolled out by Government, with support of humanitarian partners, UNICEF’s monitoring has revealed high numbers of families with acute social and child protection needs.
UNICEF’s strategy
Under the leadership of the Government of Armenia and in close collaboration with other humanitarian partners, UNICEF is committed to enhancing existing systems to address critical gaps and ensure sustained humanitarian services to cover ongoing needs of refugee children, their caregivers, and vulnerable children in host communities, abiding by principles of ‘do no harm’ and equity. The revised HAC Appeal aims to maintain continuity of services until the end of 2024 and address the needs of a larger number of population in need, compared to the initial HAC Appeal for October 2023-March 2024.
UNICEF’s support will aim to reach affected children and their families within the overall, increased refugee caseload, as well as to strengthen national system capacities, promoting links between humanitarian development programmes. UNICEF will work with central and local government and civil society partners to ensure inclusive, age- and gender-appropriate and disability-sensitive services for children, adolescents, and their families. As required, UNICEF will continue to lead/co-lead the child protection and education sub-working groups within the protection working group, co-lead the cash working group and actively participate in the health and nutrition, mental health and psychosocial working groups.
Over 2024, UNICEF will sustain and expand the scope of service provision in mental health and psychosocial support, child protection case management (including specialized services for children with disabilities) and parenting support to refugees and host communities. The capacity of existing community-based, child and adolescent-friendly spaces and ‘child and family support hubs’ will be further strengthened, and their geographic coverage and accessibility expanded, focusingon settlements hosting the displaced population. The capacity of social workforce professionals will be strengthened to ensurequality services and proper coordination along referral pathways.
To ensure access to formal education and prevent school dropout, UNICEF will provide remedial education classes to refugee students. UNICEF will continue to enhance mental health and psychosocial support services in schools with special focus on social emotional learning, first psychological aid training, and support for teachers. To increase access to pre-schools, UNICEF will invest in infrastructure rehabilitation of existing kindergartens including provision of WASH facilities, provide teacher training and organize preparedness classes for 6-year-olds from the refugee and host community during the summer. Non-formal education opportunities, especially for adolescent boys and girls, will continue to be provided.
UNICEF will continue providing infant and young child feeding counselling sessions, as well as system strengthening efforts through capacity building of health professionals, especially at primary health care level.
UNICEF will continue to support cash assistance to refugee children and to strengthen the shock-responsiveness of the social protection system. The completion and analysis of the Multi-Sector-Needs Assessment will be further supported to inform Government and partners' medium and long-term planning. This assessment will facilitate the development of tailored and needs-based support on case management, including through cash assistance, and the piloting of new social assistance programmes.
Programme targets
Find out more about UNICEF's work
Highlights
Humanitarian Action is at the core of UNICEF’s mandate to realize the rights of every child. This edition of Humanitarian Action for Children – UNICEF’s annual humanitarian fundraising appeal – describes the ongoing crises affecting children in Armenia; the strategies that we are using to respond to these situations; and the donor support that is essential in this response.