UN Sustainable Development Goals

Through various projects, partners, and programmes, we’re striving to make a difference and contribute to four of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). From our partnership with Just a Drop, which supports the construction of a latrine block at a local school in Nicaragua, South America to our work with the World Land Trust to preserve critically threatened tropical forests in Africa, Asia, and Central and South America, we’re trying to do our part as a company to help achieve a better future for generations to come.

We're focused on the following UN SDGs

Good Health and Wellbeing

Goal One: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all, at all ages. 

More children survive now than ever before. Yet, in 2018 alone, 6.2 million children and young adolescents died, mostly from preventable causes.

UNICEF works around the world to strengthen health systems; immunise and treat children for pneumonia, diarrhoea, malaria, and other health conditions; help countries combat non-communicable diseases; and support children with mental health conditions, developmental delays, and disabilities. To end preventable maternal, new-born and child deaths and promote the health and development of all children and adolescents, UNICEF continues to scale up work in primary health care at the community level.

Gender Equality

Goal Two: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.

Dropping out of school to assume household responsibilities, being pressed into child marriage, experiencing gender-based violence ─ harmful gender norms take many forms.

Gender disparities can start at birth, and they expand as children age. Today, some 650 million girls and women around the world have been married as children, and over 200 million have undergone female genital mutilation.

Gender equality is a human right. It is also a precondition for reducing poverty and advancing development. UNICEF works across the world so that girls and boys enjoy the same rights, resources, opportunities, and protections. We embed gender results across our programming to ensure all children grow, learn, and thrive – no matter their gender. UNICEF's focuses include positive parenting, adolescent girls’ empowerment, and data analysis to help governments identify barriers to gender equality.

Clean Water and Sanitation

Goal Three: Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.

Contaminated water and poor sanitation are among the leading causes of death for children under five. Without proper water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), children face an increased risk of preventable diseases and suffer malnutrition, stunting and other critical health issues.

Lack of sanitation and hygiene undermines progress in other areas of development too, like education and gender equality.

UNICEF works to bring clean water and basic sanitation and hygiene facilities to homes, schools, and health centres so that children can grow and learn in a safe environment. In 2018, for example, UNICEF helped provide safe water to more than 43 million people in humanitarian settings across 64 countries.

Reduced Inequalities

Goal Four: Reduce inequality within and among countries.

Progress to eradicate poverty has been uneven. Poverty is just one of the reasons children may be cut off from essential care and services. Across the world, girls and boys are also excluded due to discrimination on the basis of gender, disability, language and ethnicity. Marginalisation makes it difficult for groups to enjoy progress and escape poverty.

UNICEF invests in social-protection programmes and policies that reduce the lifelong consequences of poverty and discrimination. Social protection – which can come in the form of child grants, school meals, skills development and other types of cash transfer programmes – connects families with health care, nutritious food and quality education to give all children, no matter what circumstances they are born into, a fair chance in life.