UNICEF has launched its Humanitarian Action Report (HAR) 2007, calling on donors to provide US$635 million to assist children and women in 33 humanitarian emergencies, ranging from Darfur to Southeast Asia.

The HAR provides an annual overview of the agency's emergency assistance programmes within the context of UN-wide appeals. The report sets out UNICEF's relief activities and its financial requirements for meeting the needs of children and women.

"Emergencies, both natural disasters and new or protracted conflicts, continue to take a toll on the lives of children and women around the world," UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman said today. "Life-saving activities are essential for those children in peril."

Of the requested US$635 million, nearly one-fifth of the total, US$121 million, is for Sudan, including programs in the Darfur region. Continued conflict and insecurity there has disrupted the lives of an estimated four million people, including 1.8 million children. Children account for half of those forced from their homes.

Children struggle to survive elsewhere, displaced by emergencies that lack the global attention surrounding Darfur. Some children in Colombia are forced from their homes by violence or recruited to fight. High HIV/AIDS rates and chronic poverty and food insecurity mean Zambian children live in one of the world's poorest nations. Many of Chad's children have fled fighting in neighbouring countries, or their own.

"Many of the crises in which UNICEF operates are neglected because they are no longer considered emergencies by the public," Dan Toole, the Director of the Office of Emergency Programmes for UNICEF, said from New York. "The crisis for children does not end when the media coverage ends, whether a child lives in Darfur or Haiti. As long as a humanitarian situation exists for children, UNICEF will be assisting."

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