50 free UNICEF trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This UNICEF trivia quiz covers the United Nations Children's Fund, from its birth as an emergency relief agency for the children of post-war Europe to the organisation working in 192 countries today. The easy questions handle the basics: what the letters originally stood for, the year and city of its founding, where its headquarters are, the orange Trick-or-Treat boxes and the famous faces who served as goodwill ambassadors. From there it moves through the founders, the executive directors from Maurice Pate to Catherine Russell, the 1965 Nobel Peace Prize, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The harder half is for people who follow the UN and international development: the Polish bacteriologist who dreamed the agency up, the Philadelphia family who invented Halloween fundraising with $17 in milk cartons, the child survival revolution and GOBI, the Innocenti research centre in Florence, the Smurf-village advert, and the day FC Barcelona became the first club to pay a charity to wear its logo. If you enjoyed our United Nations or world history quizzes, this is the deep dive on one agency. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries for UNICEF, its programmes and the people named before publishing.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What did the letters UNICEF originally stand for?
United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund
The name was shortened to United Nations Children's Fund in 1953, but the familiar acronym stayed.
Q 02In which year was UNICEF created?
1946
Its first job was immediate relief for children and mothers affected by the Second World War.
Q 03Where is UNICEF's headquarters?
New York
Regional offices in Panama City, Geneva, Bangkok, Nairobi, Amman, Kathmandu and Senegal support 150 country offices.
Q 04In roughly how many countries and territories does UNICEF operate?
About 190
The handful it does not work in includes the Bahamas, Brunei, Cyprus, Malta, Monaco and Singapore.
Q 05How is UNICEF funded?
Entirely by voluntary contributions
Its income was $8.61 billion in 2024, with public-sector partners giving $4.92 billion of it.
Q 06How many members sit on UNICEF's executive board?
36
They are government representatives elected by the Economic and Social Council, usually for three-year terms.
Q 07In which year did UNICEF become a permanent part of the United Nations system and drop 'International' and 'Emergency' from its name?
1953
Its mandate had already been widened in 1950 to cover the long-term needs of children in developing countries.
Q 08Which Polish physician and bacteriologist is regarded as the founder of UNICEF and served as its first chairman?
Ludwik Rajchman
He was also the father of Jan Rajchman, the computer scientist who invented magnetic-core memory.
Q 09Which former US president was among those who backed the resolution creating UNICEF and later called its first executive director 'the most effective human angel I know'?
Herbert Hoover
Rajchman presented the resolution to the General Assembly with the support of Hoover and New York mayor La Guardia.
Q 10Who was UNICEF's first executive director, serving from 1947 until his death in 1965?
Maurice Pate
Hammarskjöld said 'at the heart of UNICEF is Maurice Pate'; Pate had earlier helped feed a million Polish children after the First World War.
Q 11UNICEF was awarded which major honour in 1965?
The Nobel Peace Prize
It later added the Indira Gandhi Prize in 1989 and the Princess of Asturias Award in 2006.
Q 12Which UNICEF executive director accepted the agency's 1965 Nobel on its behalf, and was also the son-in-law of Marie and Pierre Curie?
Henry Labouisse
His marriage to Ève Curie made him one of five Nobel laureates in the Curie family.
Q 13Which entertainer became UNICEF's first goodwill ambassador, given the title Ambassador-at-Large in 1954?
Danny Kaye
He once flew a Learjet to 65 cities in five days for the agency, and was knighted by the Queen of Denmark for the work.
Q 21What colour are the traditional Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF collection boxes?
Orange
Schools hand them out before 31 October; UNICEF Canada dropped the box in 2006 in favour of classroom fundraising.
Q 22Which US president declared 31 October 'UNICEF Day' in 1967?
Lyndon B. Johnson
He praised the campaign for turning a holiday 'too often marred by youthful vandalism' into 'basic training in world citizenship'.
Q 23Which football club, in 2006, became the first to sponsor a charity rather than the reverse, paying UNICEF to wear its logo on the front of its shirts?
FC Barcelona
It was also the first time in the club's history that any organisation's name had appeared across the front of the jersey.
Q 14Which actress, appointed a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1989, made her first field mission to Ethiopia and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for the work?
Audrey Hepburn
She said she wanted to repay the international aid she had received as a child under German occupation.
Q 15What is the name of the statue unveiled at UNICEF's New York headquarters in 2002 to honour Hepburn?
The Spirit of Audrey
It was unveiled at the UN Special Session on Children; the Academy had already given her a posthumous Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.
Q 16To which country did Hepburn travel for UNICEF in September 1992, four months before her death, describing what she saw as 'apocalyptic'?
Somalia
She said it was far worse than the famines she had seen in Ethiopia and Bangladesh.
Q 17Roughly how many UNICEF goodwill ambassadors are there?
Over 250
They serve at international, regional or national level depending on their profile and interests.
Q 18In which US city did Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF begin as a local event on Halloween 1950?
Philadelphia
The Allison family's children collected nickels and dimes in decorated milk cartons for the children of post-war Europe.
Q 19How much money did the first Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF collection raise in 1950?
$17
The programme has since raised more than $188 million worldwide.
Q 20Who invented Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF after seeing a booth collecting money to send powdered milk to undernourished children?
Mary Emma Allison
Her husband, Reverend Clyde Allison, spread the idea through local Presbyterian churches.
Q 24How much did the Catalan club agree to donate to UNICEF each year under its original 2006 shirt deal?
€1,500,000
A 2016 renewal guaranteed £1.58 million a year plus free advertising, with the logo eventually moving to the back of the shirt.
Q 25A 2005 Belgian UNICEF advert shocked viewers by showing the home of which cartoon characters annihilated by warplanes?
The Smurfs
Shown only after 9 pm, it raised money to rehabilitate former child soldiers in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Q 26Which retailer angered UNICEF in 2009 by using the agency's trademarked slogan 'Change for Good' in its advertising?
Tesco
The real Change for Good scheme collects passengers' spare coins on airlines and has raised tens of millions of dollars.
Q 27Which airline has supported UNICEF's Change for Good scheme with passenger envelopes since 1991?
Qantas
Passengers hand over more than 19,500 kg of coins every year, and frequent flyers can donate points instead.
Q 28UNICEF's research arm, the Innocenti Research Centre, is based in a historic hospital building in which city?
Florence
It was established in 1988 in the Ospedale degli Innocenti, a Renaissance foundling hospital.
Q 29UNICEF's Supply Division, which ships more than $3 billion in aid a year, is based in New York and which European capital?
Copenhagen
Its warehouse there stocks everything from water purification tablets to the 'School in a Box'.
Q 30What is the name of UNICEF's annual flagship report, first published in 1980?
The State of the World's Children
Peter Adamson wrote it for 15 years, and the 1982-83 edition launched the 'child survival revolution'.