UNICEF in Guatemala
UNICEF is working with partners in Guatemala to support and protect vulnerable children, mitigating their deprivations and ensuring their rights, safety and well-being. Learn more, including how to help.
For children in Guatemala, multiple risks to health and safety
Guatemala is a post-conflict country, still grappling with the legacy of decades of civil war and internal conflict. Having embraced democracy, the nation is committed to system strengthening and reform to ensure long lasting security, justice, violence prevention and response, and a better future for children.
Substantial progress has been made in the areas of health and education and the economy is steadily growing. But substantial challenges remain.
Guatemala: a country at the center of a regional migration crisis driven by violence, climate change and socioeconomic inequality
Poverty is widespread and unemployment is high. Violence by armed groups continues with impunity, hampering social progress and endangering children's safety and well-being.
Guatemala is also the most vulnerable Latin American country to extreme weather events and other impacts of climate change.
About half of all Guatemalan children suffer from chronic malnutrition. A quarter of households — and thousands of schools — lack access to safe water, and 51 percent of households lack sufficient sanitation. Reading and math proficiencies among sixth graders is low.
Guatemala's geographic location puts it at the center of a regional migration crisis. It is both a country of origin and a transit country for children and families in migrating north from Central and South America, including an increasing number of crossing the dangerous Darién Gap.
Between January and August 2024, more than 50,000 children crossed the dense jungle wilderness connecting Colombia to Panama, part of a larger migration that runs into the hundreds of thousands each year. Most continue onward, entering Guatemala through towns such as Esquipulas, which is situated on the border with Honduras, before continuing north.
A lack of protection services along migration routes leaves children vulnerable to physical violence, sexual violence and trafficking. By the time migrants arrive in Esquipulas, many are malnourished, exhausted and traumatized.
What UNICEF is doing in Guatemala to improve children's lives
UNICEF Guatemala is committed to working with the government and other partners to strengthen essential social and protection systems and services and address root causes of migration while supporting vulnerable children and families on the move, regardless of their country of origin.
Here are some examples of some priority program efforts.
Nutrition
To tackle malnutrition, UNICEF focuses on strengthening prevention and treatment services. To that end, UNICEF helped establish and promote a “Great National Crusade for Nutrition,” aimed at preventing and treating malnutrition in all its forms. As part of the campaign, UNICEF has reached hundreds of thousands of people through radio announcements and mobile messaging aimed at changing attitudes and behavior.
Working with the Ministry of Health, UNICEF supported the deployment of thousands of social workers to make household visits and provide nutrition and other counseling to parents and caregivers, and helped train religious leaders, traditional birth attendants, health workers and other ‘Agents of Change’ to share knowledge and promote breastfeeding and malnutrition prevention strategies.
Education
To support early childhood development, UNICEF collaborated with the Ministry of Education to establish early education centers focusing on underserved, lower-resourced rural communities. Support included training staff, providing technical equipment and spearheading a campaign to promote the importance of early education to caregivers and community leaders.
Since 2021, UNICEF has helped establish over 500 centers in partnership with the government as part of the popular pilot program. The initiative, now funded and run by the government, continues to ensure that nearly 14,000 of Guatemala’s most vulnerable children have access to quality early learning through national institutions.
"This is an example of UNICEF’s development work at its best: demonstrating effective strategies ... and then advocating for the government to adopt them as the way to reach scaleable, sustainable, long-term solutions," UNICEF USA President and CEO Michael Nyenhuis wrote after visiting the country in July 2024.
Every dollar spent on preprimary education results in $9 of benefits to society, and the figure is $17 for children living with disadvantages. — Michael Nyenhuis, President and CEO, UNICEF USA
"Lack of early childhood education perpetuates cycles of poverty and disadvantage that can span generations, undermining the strength and stability of our societies," Nyenhuis wrote. "Conversely, studies have shown that every dollar spent on preprimary education results in $9 of benefits to society, and the figure is $17 for children living with disadvantages."
Related: Reflections from Guatemala: Why Early Education Matters
Protection
Another top priority for UNICEF in Guatemala is strengthening child protection. Efforts in this area focus on improving access to services for victims of violence and strengthening violence prevention and response at the community and municipal levels.
More than half of the nation's municipalities have implemented child protection systems with UNICEF's help, and UNICEF violence prevention programs have reached more than 1 million families and assisted in the recovery of 20,000 child and adolescent victims of violence.
To support children and families on the move, UNICEF works to ensure access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), provides spaces for self-care for women and adolescent girls and supports gender-based violence prevention and response services. Every year, UNICEF reaches thousands of children and caregivers through child-friendly spaces in migrant reception stations and host communities, offering health services, psychosocial support, child protection and case management.
UNICEF also works with local authorities to identify unaccompanied and separated children, providing information to families about potential risks on the migration route, calling attention to the unprecedented increase in children making these journeys and the need for protection measures.
Learn more about how UNICEF is working to create a more equitable world for children.
