Key Considerations

Advocacy

• Advocate with national and local authorities (and in conflict-affected contexts with all parties to conflict), donors, partners and caregivers for every child and woman’s right to health[48], using global and national commitments around ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all at all ages, including SDG 3 on health[49], the CRC and the Astana Commitment.

• Advocate for greater and timely investments to ensure timely access to life-saving care and to quality maternal, neonatal, child and adolescent health services.

• Advocate for the protection of health workers, health care users, health facilities, supplies and ambulances, with reference to IHL and relevant Security Council resolutions, including Resolution 2286.[50]

• In conflict affected contexts, establish a dialogue with all parties to conflict around access to health services and in line with IHL.

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Coordination and Partnerships 

• Clarify the responsibilities of UNICEF, national and local authorities and partners in response plans as early as possible.

• Ensure that the rights and needs of newborns, children, adolescents and women are adequately captured in interagency and health sector assessments, strategies and programming.

• Identify and address any gaps or bottlenecks in coordination mechanisms in collaboration with governments, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and other partners.

• Ensure coordination with mental health actors and psycho-social support services as per IASC Guidelines on Mental Health and Psycho-social Support.

Quality Programming and Standards

• Foster an integrated multi-sectoral response: collaborate closely with other sectors (especially Nutrition, WASH, Education, Protection and Community Engagement for Behaviour and Social Change) for an integrated response to displacement, disease outbreaks, natural disasters and other situations that require multi-sectoral and integrated approaches. 

• Focus on the most deprived and hard-to-reach: newborns, children, adolescents and women, especially in remote rural areas, urban slums and poorest and hard-to-reach communities who are often dis-proportionally affected by humanitarian crises.

• In the case of a mass casualty event, when governments or partners call for UNICEF’s support, ensure affected populations, especially newborns, children, adolescents and women, have access to first aid, emergency and trauma care and that health authorities are supported to launch and implement a comprehensive response, including psycho-social support.  In areas at risk of such events, UNICEF and its partners, especially the health cluster/sector lead agency, should ensure preparedness for response.  

• Healthcare facilities must be safe and child-friendly in line with early childhood development principles, as per the Framework on Nurturing Care, in terms of design, information provided and access.

• Rights and needs of children with disabilities and their caregivers must be considered during needs assessments, humanitarian needs overview exercises, response and recovery efforts.

• Work with GBV actors and coordination mechanisms to reduce risks of GBV and ensure provision of care for survivors of GBV. Equip and train health personnel with up-to-date information on available GBV response services and referral procedures to support GBV survivors. If there are no GBV actors available, train health staff on the GBV Pocket Guide.

• Systematically engage affected communities and local authorities in preparedness and preventive action at community level, and in the design, planning and monitoring of health programmes.

• Using safe and confidential feedback and reporting mechanisms based on affected populations’ preferred methods of communication, systematically use their views to review, inform and correct health interventions.

• Ensure that children, adolescents, caregivers and communities participate in decisions that affect their lives and have access to safe and confidential complaints mechanisms.

Linking Humanitarian and Development

• Preventing health system and service collapse is of utmost importance soon after the initial shock to ensure ability to deliver all other programme commitments and reduce efforts and resources needed for early recovery. UNICEF should provide critical inputs towards re-establishment of routine services, e.g. cold chain for resumption of Expanded Programme on Immunisation services.

• Support the decentralisation and strengthening of primary health care in areas most subjected to natural disaster and conflict.

• Ensure front-line health workers are mobilised and supported by their local communities, authorities and CSOs, including local women’s and children’s organisations/groups, and mechanisms are in place for rapid expansion of integrated community services when needed.

• Identify and strengthen the capacity of existing community structures to respond to shock and contribute to the reconstruction of systems as soon as the context allows for recovery interventions to reduce needs, vulnerabilities and risks of affected populations.

• Strengthen resilience of communities and health infrastructure to withstand disaster-related   hazards such as floods, hurricanes or earthquakes as determined by the risk assessment.