47 Fun Facts About UNICEF

What did the letters UNICEF originally stand for?

United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund became United Nations Children's Fund in 1953 to reflect a mission wider than emergencies, but it kept the acronym.

Which UN body created UNICEF in 1946?

The General Assembly created it to bring food, clothing and health care to children in countries devastated by World War II.

Where is UNICEF's headquarters?

New York hosted the 1990 World Summit for Children, where world leaders met at the UN and set goals to improve children's lives by 2000.

Since 1979, royalties from which ABBA song have gone to UNICEF?

Chiquitita has raised millions for UNICEF, and ABBA asked that the money be spent on empowering girls.

How is UNICEF funded?

Entirely by voluntary contributions from governments and private donors, which is why independent national committees exist to raise money from the public.

In the 1950s, UNICEF and WHO led a worldwide campaign against yaws, a disfiguring disease cured with what?

Penicillin, given in a single injection, helped cut yaws cases from about 50 million to 2.5 million by 1964.

Which K-pop band launched the Love Myself anti-violence campaign with UNICEF in 2017?

BTS took the campaign to the United Nations in 2018, where RM spoke about overcoming his own insecurities and urged young people to speak for themselves.

Which American toured the world assessing food shortages with Maurice Pate in 1946?

Herbert Hoover had led the relief effort that fed millions in Europe after World War I, with Pate running its work feeding Polish children.

Maurice Pate agreed to lead UNICEF only if it treated the children of which nations equally?

Defeated and victorious nations were treated alike, so UNICEF milk reached children on both sides of the war across Europe.

UNICEF was awarded which major honour in 1965?

The Nobel Peace Prize came in December 1965, less than a year after UNICEF's founding director, Maurice Pate, died while still in charge.

Henry Labouisse, UNICEF's second executive director, married the daughter of which famous scientist?

Marie Curie's daughter Ève married him in 1954 and travelled so widely with him for the agency that she became known as the First Lady of UNICEF.

Which entertainer became UNICEF's first goodwill ambassador, given the title Ambassador-at-Large in 1954?

Danny Kaye once flew his own plane to 65 cities in five days on a whirlwind tour for UNICEF.

Which actress travelled to famine-hit Ethiopia on a UNICEF mission in 1988?

Audrey Hepburn said she could testify to what UNICEF means to children because she had received food and medical relief herself after World War II.

Which singer co-founded Soccer Aid, the celebrity football match that raises money for UNICEF?

Robbie Williams set it up with his friend Jonathan Wilkes, and they persuaded Diego Maradona to play in the first match in 2006.

Which James Bond actor became a UNICEF goodwill ambassador in 1991?

Roger Moore's work for UNICEF, rather than his films, earned him a knighthood in 2003.

Which Stranger Things star became UNICEF's youngest-ever goodwill ambassador in 2018?

Millie Bobby Brown was 14, and she has said being bullied at school, which made her switch schools, is why she speaks out against bullying.

In which US city did Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF begin as a local event on Halloween 1950?

Philadelphia was where a pastor's wife saw children at a department-store booth collecting money to send powdered milk overseas, which gave her the idea.

How much money did the first Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF collection raise in 1950?

$17 was the first haul, but in 1953 the US Committee for UNICEF took the campaign up, and it has been running ever since.

In 2017, Malawi and UNICEF opened Africa's first testing corridor for what technology?

Drones had already carried dried blood samples for infant HIV tests there in a trial the year before, which led to the corridor.

What colour are the traditional Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF collection boxes?

Orange boxes were a Canadian Halloween tradition from the 1950s until UNICEF dropped them there in 2006 in favour of fundraising in schools.

Which US president declared 31 October 'UNICEF Day' in 1967?

Lyndon B. Johnson's proclamation covered October 31 in every year after 1967 too, so the date has stayed National UNICEF Day ever since.

UNICEF's name was the first ever to appear on the front of which football club's shirts?

FC Barcelona turned the usual deal around, paying UNICEF €1.5 million a year instead of being paid to carry its name.

Whose tattoos came to life in a 2016 UNICEF film?

David Beckham's tattoos turned into scenes of children suffering abuse, to show how violence can leave lasting marks on a child.

A 2005 Belgian UNICEF advert shocked viewers by showing the home of which cartoon characters annihilated by warplanes?

The Smurfs were chosen to shock adults who grew up with them into funding help for ex-child soldiers, and the ad aired only after 9 pm to spare young fans.

The therapeutic paste UNICEF uses to treat severely malnourished children is based on which food?

Peanuts go into the paste, and because it needs no cooking, water or refrigeration, most children can be treated at home instead of in hospital.

Which airline has supported UNICEF's Change for Good scheme with passenger envelopes since 1991?

Qantas passengers can leave spare change in any currency, and frequent flyers can give their points to UNICEF instead.

UNICEF's research office, UNICEF Innocenti, is housed in a historic former orphanage in which city?

Florence's Ospedale degli Innocenti took in abandoned babies for centuries, and a swaddled infant from its façade became the emblem of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

UNICEF's Supply Division, its global supply hub, is headquartered in which European capital?

Copenhagen's UNICEF warehouse is where Prince William and Kate helped pack relief supplies in 2011 for children facing famine in East Africa.

What is the name of UNICEF's annual flagship report, first published in 1980?

The State of the World's Children 1982-83 launched the child survival revolution, a push to bring cheap, proven treatments to children dying of preventable causes.

Which executive director led UNICEF for 15 years from 1980 and drove the 'child survival revolution'?

James P. Grant made low-cost fixes for easily preventable child deaths UNICEF's cause, and his leadership was widely credited with saving millions of children's lives.

What did UNICEF's 1980s GOBI health strategy stand for?

Growth monitoring, oral rehydration, breastfeeding and immunization were picked because they were cheap and could save children's lives on a huge scale.

Which former Beatle organised the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh, which raised relief funds for UNICEF to administer?

George Harrison took up the cause after his friend Ravi Shankar asked him to help Shankar's homeland.

Which former Peace Corps director led UNICEF from 1995 to 2005?

Carol Bellamy was a late US pick, put forward when the Secretary-General seemed set to hand a job Americans had always held to a European.

Which former chief of staff to Jill Biden became UNICEF's executive director in 2022?

Catherine Russell took over after Henrietta Fore stepped down to care for her husband, who was seriously ill.

Which UN day falls on November 20, the anniversary of its child rights convention?

World Children's Day falls on the date the UN had already adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, back in 1959.

As of 2026, which is the only UN member state that has not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child?

The USA helped draft it and signed it in 1995, but Presidents Clinton and Bush never started the ratification process.

What was UNICEF Kid Power's main product when it launched in 2015?

A kids' fitness tracker bracelet counted steps, and completing missions unlocked therapeutic food packets for severely malnourished children.

UNICEF's restaurant campaign, launched in 2007, asked American diners to donate $1 for what?

Their free tap water was the ask because diners usually get it for nothing, and the dollars paid for clean water for children in poorer countries.

U-Report, UNICEF's youth polling tool, originally worked through which technology?

SMS text messages meant even young people with basic phones and no internet could answer polls, starting in Uganda in 2011.

In 2019, UNICEF launched a fund to accept donations in what?

Cryptocurrency gifts in bitcoin and ether are held in the coin they arrived in and paid out in that same coin.

UNICEF helped spearhead the global eradication initiative launched in 1988 against which disease?

Polio cases worldwide have fallen by more than 99% since the initiative began.

In December 2020, UNICEF made funding available to feed children in which wealthy country for the first time in its history?

Britain's Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg called it a political stunt of the lowest order and said UNICEF should be ashamed of itself.

UNICEF's total income in 2024 was closest to which figure?

$8.6 billion is the nearest figure, and for all its public appeals, most of it came from governments and other public-sector partners, not private donors.

Which Swedish company became UNICEF's biggest corporate partner in 2009?

IKEA's $48 million gift for children in some of India's poorest areas is what made it UNICEF's biggest corporate partner.

Which luxury pen maker gave part of the proceeds from its 'Signature for Good' collections to UNICEF?

Montblanc makes writing instruments, so it backed UNICEF programmes that teach children to read and write.

Which Spanish honour did UNICEF receive in 2006?

Princess of Asturias Award, known as the Prince of Asturias Award until 2014, went to UNICEF for sixty years of child advocacy.

Which country's UNICEF committee lost its chairwoman, Heide Simonis, in a 2008 mismanagement row?

Germany's UNICEF committee lost thousands of supporters after claims that donor money had been wasted.