"la Caixa" Foundation

About the partnership

Since: 2002

Locations: Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Syria, Uganda, among others

Over the past 20 years, “la Caixa” Foundation has become one of UNHCR’s leading strategic partners among the financial sector, supporting a number of emergency and health related projects across Africa and Asia.

Since 2017 this partnership has focused on projects in Ethiopia – primarily the MOM project. This project was launched by UNHCR and “la Caixa” Foundation with the goal of reducing child mortality and improving the state of nutrition of children, and pregnant and breastfeeding mothers in refugee camps.

The MOM project approach is to foster a culture of methodological and technological innovation, e.g., the adaptation of the Infant and Young Child Feeding Framework (IYCF) to an emergency context and the piloting of technology for a non-invasive diagnosis of anaemia in children.

Impact at a glance

Since 2017, the MOM Project has helped over 808,390 people, primarily mothers and young children.

Additionally, the MOM project has succeeded in reducing:

• acute malnutrition by 47%
• severe acute malnutrition by 60%
• anemia in children by 23%
• infant mortality by 36%

What SDGs does the partnership fall under? 

• SDG1 No Poverty
• SDG2 Zero Hunger
• SDG3 Good Health and Well-being
• SDG5 Gender Equality
• SDG6 Clean water and sanitation
• SDG17 Partnerships for the Goals