Originally established as the United Nations (UN) International Children's Emergency Fund by the member states of the UN in 1946, UNICEF has spent many years providing humanitarian and developmental aid to children in need throughout the world, carrying out crucial work in various fields, including health, nutrition, and education. Eurofins has been proudly supporting UNICEF for a decade.
With a Group Service Centre location in Brussels, Eurofins has built a particularly strong partnership with UNICEF Belgium. Since 2012, Eurofins companies and the Eurofins Foundation have contributed to numerous UNICEF projects, especially those focused on improving nutrition – a topic very closely aligned with Eurofins’ mission to contribute to a healthier world.
UNICEF’s initiatives to improve nutrition and combat child malnutrition and illness have made a significant difference to local communities in Angola, Bangladesh, Uganda, and more, by providing the best medical attention to children and to pregnant and breastfeeding mothers. In 2013, when Angola suffered its worst drought in over three decades, leaving 1.5 million people in food insecurity, UNICEF opened more than 500 therapeutic programme centres, with Eurofins’ financial support. These centres provided screening for malnutrition to over one million children, 59,000 of whom then received ready-to-use emergency food packets (designed specifically for children suffering from severe acute malnutrition), helping them to make significant recovery within a few weeks or even days.
Of course, there is more value in prevention than in cure, and UNICEF also works to stop health crises before they happen, wherever possible. Their work in Bangladesh is exemplary of this approach. Undernutrition in young children often starts in the womb with foetal growth restriction, when a baby doesn't grow to a normal weight during pregnancy because the mother is suffering from malnutrition. Together with Eurofins and other donors, UNICEF provided iron-folic acid supplementation to a total of 91,500 pregnant and breastfeeding women and teenage girls in Bangladesh. As a result, anaemia rates among these women dropped by 12%, helping them to carry a healthy baby to term and improving the child’s overall health outlook.
Similarly, in 2018, Eurofins also supported UNICEF’s efforts to supply over 517 million vitamin A tablets to children in vulnerable communities across 58 countries. Vitamin A contributes to stronger immune systems, reducing mortality rates in children under five and providing them with better defences against various diseases and disabilities caused by vitamin A deficiency, such as blindness.
In 2022, the Eurofins Foundation continued its partnership with UNICEF Belgium through support for the ‘Indonesia's support for Girls' Education and Empowerment through STEM skills’ project.
Christèle Devos, Executive Director at UNICEF Belgium, looks back on how their partnership with Eurofins has helped them to scale up their efforts around the world:
“On behalf of UNICEF, a sincere thank you to Eurofins for their valuable support over these past 10 years. Our partnership has helped us to bring significant change to the health and nutrition of children worldwide. We look forward to continuing to join forces with Eurofins in our efforts together to make a difference for every child in need.” Centrally managed content
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