UNICEF South Africa is a United Nations agency office in Pretoria. It publishes one office mailbox and one donor line, and — unusually for a contact page — it publishes a fraud warning of its own, which tells you how much impersonation this name attracts.
UNICEF South Africa contact details
- Email: [email protected]
- Donor care telephone: +27 73 156 2648
- Physical address: 209 Waterkloof Road, Pretoria, 0002
- Postal address: PO Box 4884, Pretoria, 0001
The donor care number is a mobile number. That is what UNICEF publishes and it is labelled as the donor care line, so it is an office line rather than an individual’s. UNICEF also names two communication staff on the same page with their own work addresses; those are people rather than desks and are not repeated here — write to [email protected].
UNICEF runs its own fraud warning page
There is an Avoid fraud section on unicef.org/southafrica, alongside Contact us in the main navigation. An organisation does not build that unless the problem is constant. UNICEF’s name, logo and staff identities are used heavily in South Africa for fake donation appeals, fake job offers and fake supplier tenders.
The three impersonations to know
- Fake donation appeals — a message, often after a disaster, asking for money by EFT or to a personal account. Donate through the Donate page on unicef.org/southafrica, never to an individual and never by transfer to an account someone sends you.
- Fake job and internship offers — UNICEF recruits through its own careers channel and does not charge a fee at any stage of recruitment. Any request for payment for an application, a visa, a medical or training is fraud.
- Fake supplier and tender requests — a purchase order on UNICEF letterhead asking a business to ship goods on credit. Verify any order directly with the Pretoria office before dispatching anything.
Verify before you pay or send anything
The pattern is always the same: urgency, a plausible logo, and an account number in the message. Stop and check with the office on the details above, using the address on this page rather than one in the message you received. This site does not publish anyone’s bank account details, and a genuine appeal will never mind you taking a day to verify it.
What this office does and does not do
- It works on programmes for children in South Africa with government and partners — health, education, child protection and social policy.
- It is not a service provider to individual families. It does not place children, does not process adoptions and does not pay grants.
- A child in immediate danger is a matter for Childline South Africa or the police on 10111, not for UNICEF.
- A social grant question is SASSA. A child protection case is your provincial Department of Social Development.
Working with UNICEF
Volunteering, U-Report, becoming a supplier and jobs each have their own section on the site rather than going through the office mailbox. Use those pages, and remember the no-fee rule: nothing legitimate in any of those processes requires you to pay.