We live in a world in which 28 million children have been driven from their
homes as a result of conflict, persecution and insecurity¹. If current trends
continue, more than 63 million
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children could be forced to flee by 2025², of
which over 25 million will cross borders and become refugees. At least
300,000 of these child refugees will end up alone, separated from their
families³. Without a step-change in the provision of education for refugee
children, at least 12 million of them will be out of school by 2025⁴.
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This report found that fewer than 15 percent of more than 3,000 school-age asylum-seeking children on the islands were enrolled in public school at the
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end of the 2017-2018 school year, and that in government-run camps on the islands, only about 100 children, all preschoolers, had access to formal education. The asylum-seeking children on the islands are denied the educational opportunities they would have on the mainland. Most of those who were able to go to school had been allowed to leave the government-run camps for housing run by local authorities and volunteers
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Every year, an estimated 15 million babies are born preterm – before 37 weeks of pregnancy. That is more than 1 in 10 live births. Approximately 1 million children die each year worldwide due to complications from their early birth. Those that sur
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vive often face a lifetime of ill-health including disability, learning difficulties, and visual and hearing problems.
Half of the babies born at or below 32 weeks (2 months early) die in low-income settings, due to a lack of feasible, cost-effective care, such as warmth, breastfeeding support, and basic care for infections and breathing difficulties. In high-income countries, almost all these babies survive.
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Health Statistics in the Western Pacific Region 2023: Monitoring health for the SDGs is the third biennial report providing an overview of
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the progress of the World Health Organization (WHO) Western Pacific Region towards the health-related Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets. This edition also serves as a baseline assessment for the implementation of the global WHO Fourteenth General Programme of Work 2025–2028 (GPW14) within the Western Pacific Region and the for the Regional Vision “Weaving Health for Families, Communities, and Societies of the Western Pacific Region: Working Together to Improve Health, Well-Being and Save Lives”.
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The Covid-19 pandemic has the significant potential to affect the quality and scale up of nutrit
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ion, health and other lifesaving interventions. The restrictions on mobility and recommendations on social distancing will affect the way we work in our nutrition programmes and measures are needed to mitigate the potential negative impact.
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A National Service Programme for All Children with Special Needs and their Families
In Myanmar, we estimate that at least 40% of children requir
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e ECI services for short to longer periods of time. At present, 35.1% of Myanmar children are moderately to severely stunted; all of these children are likely to have one or more developmental delays. In addition, at least 5% to 12% of the nation’s children will be identified to have disabilities, chronic diseases or atypical behaviours.
Over time, approximately 70% of the children who will be served will improve in their development, attain expected levels of development for their age, and will consolidate their gains within one to two years. Other children, approximately 30%, will have lifelong disabilities or other conditions, and ECI services usually greatly improve their development and help them to achieve their full potential.
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Malnutrition in childhood and pregnancy has many adverse consequences for child survival and long-term well-being. It
also has far-reaching consequences for human capital, economic productivity,
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and national development overall. The
consequences of malnutrition should be a significant concern for policy makers in Burkina Faso, since around 672,000
children under 5 years (21 percent) suffer from chronic malnutrition (stunting or low height-for-age) and 10 percent
suffer from acute malnutrition (wasting or low weight-for-height) (Ministère de la Santé [MOH] et al. 2018).
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What school closures under COVID-19 mean for children and young people in
crisis-affected contexts
The report identifies major global gaps in WASH services: one third of health care facilities do not have what is needed to clean hands where care is provided; one in four facilities have no water services,
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and 10% have no sanitation services. This means that 1.8 billion people use facilities that lack basic water services and 800 million use facilities with no toilets. Across the world’s 47 least-developed countries, the problem is even greater: half of health care facilities lack basic water services. Furthermore, the extent of the problem remains hidden because major gaps in data persist, especially on environmental cleaning.
This report also describes the global and national responses to the 2019 World Health Assembly resolution on WASH in health care facilities. More than 70% of countries have conducted related situation analyses, 86% have updated and are implementing standards and 60% are working to incrementally improve infrastructure and operation and maintenance of WASH services. Case studies from 30 countries demonstrate that progress is being propelled by strong national leadership and coordination, use of data to direct resources and action, and the mutual benefits of empowering health workers and communities to develop solutions together.
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Fighting continues to displace people in Rakhine and Shan States causing displacement of 3,700 people bringing the total displacement in the first
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two months of the year to approximately 7,500 people.
UNICEF is restarting soap distributions in northern Rakhine State for approximately 100,000 people per month in coordination with food distributions by the World Food Programme. Over 37,400 metric tons has been transferred to the Rakhine office for these activities.
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At the time of writing, the novel coronavirus pandemic had reached every region of the world, with millions of infections globally
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and untold disruptions to nearly every aspect of daily life.
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Diarrhea is one of the world’s leading causes of child illness and death, and rotavirus is the
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most common cause of severe diarrhea. Yet it can be prevented and treated. There is a vaccine. And while hundreds of thousands of children in India will gain access to rotavirus vaccines -part of a national introduction marking Asia’s largest so far -millions of children globally still lack access. This new report from the Rota Council summarizes the latest evidence on rotavirus disease and vaccines and identifies 21 recommendations for stakeholders to scale up coverage and prevent hundreds of thousands of child deaths annually.
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A study set out to investigate the factors affecting the prevalence of the practice among cross-border communities in East Africa
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and the Horn of Africa and the extent to which people cross borders to practise or undergo FGM and the effects of the practice on the women and girls in those communities. Changes were found in social norms in the cross-border communities investigated, indicating that the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) can be eradicated. Effective interventions to end FGM need to be tailored to communities’ belief systems if they are to be “owned” by and mobilize the communities to change their culture. This report summarises the findings.
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In response to COVID-19, UNICEF continues to support the Ministry of Health and Sports’ Health Literacy Promotion Unit to translate
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and disseminate messages including in ethnic languages for the border areas on good hygiene and handwashing. Social media boosting and message dissemination reach approximately 15 million people countrywide.
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Myanmar is prone to various natural hazards that include earthquakes, floods, cyclones, droughts, fires, tsunamis, some of whichhave the potential to impact large numbers of people. In the event tha
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t large numbers of people are affected (such as was the case in 2008 following cyclone Nargis), the government may decide to request international assistance to respond to the disaster.
The overall goal of the ERPP is to mitigate the impact of disasters and save as many lives as possible from preventable causes. It aims to ensure that effective and timely assistance is provided to people in need through effective coordination and communication on emergency preparedness and humanitarian response between members of the HCTin Myanmar. The approach has been developed in collaboration with the Government, to facilitate a coordinated and effective support to people affected by humanitarian crises.
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Myanmar is prone to various natural hazards that include earthquakes, floods, cyclones, droughts, fires, tsunamis, some of whichhave the potential to impact large numbers of people. In the event tha
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t large numbers of people are affected(such as was the case in 2008 following cyclone Nargis), the government may decide to request international assistance to respond to the disaster.
The overall goal of the ERPP is to mitigate the impact of disasters and save as many lives as possible from preventable causes. It aims to ensure that effective and timely assistance is provided to people in need through effective coordination and communication on emergency preparedness and humanitarian response between members of the HCTin Myanmar. The approach has been developed in collaboration with the Government, to facilitate a coordinated and effective support to people affected by humanitarian crises.
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Women and children, especially pregnant girls and women, infants and young
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children and postpartum women, are populations that are extremely vulnerable in emergencies. Breastfeeding provides children with hydration, comfort, connection, high quality nutrition and protection against disease, shielding them from the worst of emergency conditions. This ability has been described as empowering and healing by some breastfeeding women.
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The Early Childhood Development Policy and its Strategic Plan seek to provide a framework to ensure such a holistic and integrated approach to
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the development of young children. International research has demonstrated the high economic returns on ECD investment and its positive impact on health and education outcomes as well as the overall economic development of a nation. The implementation of the ECD Policy will thus provide Rwanda with the basis for achieving the objectives and goals of the EDPRS and Vision 2020.
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front cover © Jonathan Hyams/Save the Children
The INEE Minimum Standards Handbook is the only global tool that articulates the minimum level of educational quality
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and access in emergencies through to recovery. The Minimum Standards express a commitment that all individuals—children, youth and adults—have a right to education.
There are different languages available: Arabic, Azerbajan, Bahsa Indonesia, Bengali, Bosnian, Coratian, Serbian, Chinese, English, French, Japanese, Krygyz, Nepali, Pashto, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Urdu, Turkish, Vietnamese
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