Greatest Need
When an emergency strikes, kids can't wait. Donate now.
Your emergency donation to our Greatest Need fund allows UNICEF to deploy emergency relief to the world’s most urgent crises within 48 hours. From providing urgent supplies to conflict zones, to reaching families displaced by natural disasters, your support changes lives.
Please make a donation today to support children in greatest need.
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How your support maximises global aid
In a changing world, your emergency donation to our disaster fund works immediately. To ensure global aid achieves the highest results for children, UNICEF uses a transparent, data-driven allocation framework.
Where Your Donation Goes:
- Guaranteed baseline support: Every designated country across 7 regions receives an immediate minimum allocation to maintain essential emergency relief programs.
- Rapid response in under 48 Hours: UNICEF teams deploy life-saving supplies to highest priority areas within 48 hours of an emergency.
- Objective, data-driven allocation: Remaining funds are systematically directed to where the crisis is most severe, calculated using three strict criteria:
Under-five mortality rate (measuring immediate risk to child survival), Gross National Income (GNI) Per Capita (measuring economic vulnerability) and Child Population Size (measuring the scale of the crisis).
Operating in 192 countries, UNICEF combines global oversight with trusted, on-the-ground insights—ensuring your contribution protects vulnerable children when every moment matters.
Donate to the Greatest Need
Your donation deploys rapid medical aid, therapeutic food, and clean water directly to crises where child survival is under threat. Protect the world's most vulnerable children when every moment matters.
Thanks to donors like you,
UNICEF responds to
over 300 emergencies every year.
Reaching kids and families
in over 192 countries.
With life-saving supplies
anywhere in 48 hours.
How do your supplies arrive?
By foot, boat, truck, plane or drone—UNICEF's humanitarian efforts ensure we always deliver life-saving support when kids need it most.
At the centre of our crisis response framework are global supply hubs. These facilities keep pre-positioned goods ready, allowing UNICEF to deploy critical emergency relief in under 48 hours anywhere an emergency strikes.
Your emergency donation directly fuels this logistical network, maintaining our readiness to step up when the next disaster hits.
Here’s just a glimpse of your impact:
Donate to the Greatest Need
Your donation deploys rapid medical aid, therapeutic food, and clean water directly to crises where child survival is under threat. Protect the world's most vulnerable children when every moment matters.
Where donations go for rapid crisis response
Your donation delivers immediate emergency relief. From clean water and vaccines to nutrition and education, here are some stories of how your support can protect families facing crises in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, and Bangladesh.
Bangladesh: A Double Emergency for Children
Bangladesh is facing a combination of a massive, protracted refugee crisis and intensifying climate-driven disasters. Today, over 4.4 million people—including 1.2 million Rohingya refugees—urgently require humanitarian assistance. With severe, climate-intensified flooding routinely cutting off entire communities, millions of children are left trapped without food, shelter, or safe latrines.
When 2024 floods devastated Bangladesh, impacting 2 million children, UNICEF provided immediate urgent shelter, clean water, and hygiene kits to support 842,482 people, while delivering school kits to keep 82,000 kids learning.
Ukraine: A Fight for Basic Survival
Years of escalating war have devastated Ukraine’s infrastructure, leaving millions of families facing dangerous electricity blackouts and critical water shortages. When shelling destroys local utilities, children are stripped of the basic right to clean water and heat.
Since the war escalated in 2022, UNICEF has been able to provide access to safe water to more than 6.4 million people across Ukraine, including nearly one million children.Having worked in Ukraine for 25+ years, UNICEF relies on immediate donor support to truck in supplies and execute massive, urgent infrastructure repairs.
Gaza: The Unprecedented Race to Save Lives
Gaza remains an incredibly perilous place for a child, with nearly 2 million people displaced and thousands of young lives lost to conflict. The humanitarian challenges on the ground are immense. UNICEF is pushing critical supplies through the borders at every single opportunity—running nutrition centres, delivering winter clothing kits, and working tirelessly to distribute water daily.
Since the ceasefire on 10th October 2025, we've been supporting 203 nutrition centres, we've delivered 957,731 thermal blankets and 291,896 winter clothing kits, and we're reaching 1.6 million people each day with clean water.
Somalia: At the Frontlines of the Climate Crisis
The children of Somalia are feeling the brutal, immediate force of the climate crisis, trapped in a destructive cycle of extreme droughts and severe flash flooding. Today, over 3.7 million children urgently need humanitarian aid as ruined water systems skyrocket the risk of deadly waterborne diseases.
Thanks to donors, we were ready for the next crisis and were able to deliver 1.4 million virals of oral cholera vaccine to help protect vulnerable children from the current cholera outbreak.
Frequently asked questions about the Greatest Need
Donate to the Greatest Need
Your donation deploys rapid medical aid, therapeutic food, and clean water directly to crises where child survival is under threat. Protect the world's most vulnerable children when every moment matters.
Humanitarian crisis for children deepens after one month of war in the Middle East
More than one month into the military escalation in the Middle East, conflict continues to exact a devastating toll on children across the region. More than 340 children have reportedly been killed and thousands injured.
Rebuilding hope: UNICEF expands ‘Back to Learning’ for hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza
Statement by UNICEF Spokesperson, James Elder, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva press briefing 27/01/2026
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