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Children and disasters
Disasters have the biggest impact on the poorest communities and the most vulnerable
Above, left and right
A cyclone drill by community members and the Cyclone people. And it is children who bear the brunt: they may not know when to flee or where
Preparedness Program (CPP), Hassan Nagar Union, Bhola
District, Bangladesh
to go; they are exposed to even greater danger if separated from their parents and families;
Jeff Holt / Save the Children they may not understand what is happening and become psychologically distressed.
Longer term affects can also be felt by children, when families become food insecure and
Middle panel, left
Operation Reach Summer Day Camp program at the financially insecure it can lead to children dropping out of school or becoming vulnerable to
Lower Coast Algiers Community Center, Louisiana. malnutrition. In most disasters, more than half of those who are affected or die are children.
The goal of the workshops is to ease anxiety related
to the upcoming hurricane season by providing children
with information and resources A growing threat
Susan Warner / Save the Children
Over the past two decades, the number of natural disasters has doubled. Not only are
Middle panel, right there more floods, cyclones, droughts and severe cold spells but experts also predict
Kids at the Crosstown Learning Center, Oklahoma test
new whistles included in backpacks provided to them by
the severity of these events will increase as a result of climate change and environmental
Save the Children as part of their disaster preparedness degradation. Glaciers and ice caps are melting, rainfall patterns are changing and drought
program. The backpacks contained supplies for disaster
preparedness like flashlights, hygiene items, teddy bears conditions are affecting more and more of the world’s land mass.
and whistles The impact of non-climate-related disasters, such as earthquakes, is also increasing, due
Michael Wyke / Tulsa World
to urbanisation and population growth. Children’s lives and well-being are also threatened
Third panel, left by epidemiological disasters, such as the avian influenza pandemic, and technological
A young child eats some Plumpynut, a high-nutrition disasters, such as the Bhopal industrial catastrophe in India and the recent Fukushima
food for severely malnourished children, in southern
Ethiopia. Global shortages of food and higher prices nuclear accident in Japan.
are drastically reducing children’s access to health care,
nutrition and education which they need to thrive
Children need not face such dire predicaments. Many of the disasters that affect children
Colin Crowley / Save the Children around the world are cyclical and to some degree predictable: droughts in the Sahel and
the Horn of Africa, flooding in India and the deltas of Bangladesh, and hurricane season
Third panel, right
Children perform dances Vietnam as part of a flood in Central America and South East Asia. Whilst natural disaster cannot be prevented,
recovery and disaster risk reduction programme communities can be prepared and made more resilient to these events, and their impacts
in a preschool supported by Save the Children
in Northern Vietnam can be mitigated and moderated through appropriately designed interventions.
AB Kyazze
What is Disaster Risk Reduction?
Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) is any activity carried out by a village, community, aid agency
or government that helps to prepare, mitigate, adapt and increase resilience toward the
impact of disasters. These activities can be legislation, policies, strategies and practices that
are developed and applied to minimise vulnerabilities and disaster risks.
DRR makes economic sense. The United Nations estimates that for every US$1 invested
in preparing for a disaster, US$7 of losses can be prevented. DRR should become part
of everyday development work, and an underlying principle by which all development
programs are judged to be climate and disaster resilient, thereby safeguarding the
development investment. Unless we invest in it now, decades of progress in poor and
disaster-prone communities could be lost.
In January 2005, 168 of the world’s governments agreed to adopt the Hyogo Framework
for Action, a global blueprint for disaster risk reduction efforts during the next decade. Its
goal is to substantially reduce disaster losses by 2015 – loss of lives and the loss of social,
economic, and environmental assets of communities and countries.
What is Climate Change Adaptation?
There is no scientific ambiguity to the fact that the world’s climate is warming and that this
DRR saves lives warming over the past 50 years is attributable in part to man’s activities1. There is a wide
consensus that this warming will lead to changing rainfall patterns, rising sea levels, increased
In 2007, Cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh
spread of tropical disease, loss of biodiversity and increased frequency and amplitude of
killed around 3,500 people. But a year
later, a similarly powerful Cyclone weather related natural disasters.
Nargis in Myanmar (Burma), claimed It is recognized that there are both areas of convergence and divergences between
more than 146,000 lives. Given the CCA and DRR. CCA programs, accepting the inevitability of a changing climate, are
similarity in geography and population activities which aim to make adjustments in natural and human systems in response to
density in the two countries, why was actual or expected climate stimuli and their effects2. Adaptation can be as much about
there such a huge difference in the exploiting beneficial opportunities as well as guarding against harm. For Save the Children,
death tolls from the two disasters?
adaptation is principally about practical measures in programming, policy and advocacy
In Bangladesh, around 1.5 million which reduce vulnerabilities or increase resilience of children and their communities from
people on the coast were able to flee the negative effects of climate change. DRR and CCA are not mutually exclusive but in
to shelters before the storm hit. The fact interdependent; a CCA project may be just as vulnerable to natural hazards as any
government’s early warning system
other project and therefore needs a DRR component to protect the CCA investment. To
included broadcasting messages on the
address the risks and uncertainty predicted by climate change, both DRR and CCA analysis
radio, mobilising volunteers and making
announcements with megaphones. and programming must attempt to factor in the unpredictability of what may happen in the
future as the planet continues to warm.
The government had learned from
terrible experiences. Cyclone Gorky
Save the Children’s approach to DRR and CCA
hit the coast of Bangladesh in 1991,
claiming more than 138,000 lives. Children are particularly at risk in a disaster and vulnerable to the incremental impacts of
Before that, in 1970, Cyclone Bhola climate change. It is essential that their immediate and longer-term survival, protection and
killed more than half a million people. developmental needs are considered in any activities to prepare for or mitigate a potential
disaster, or adapt to the negative impacts of longer-term climatic trends. Communities and
local authorities need to listen to children to find out what risks they might face and how
they might respond to them.
Save the Children has pioneered child-centred DRR. Child-centred DRR means putting
children at the heart of DRR activities – recognising the specific vulnerabilities children face
from disasters, which differ to those faced by adults, and ensuring children are appropriately
planned for and addressed in DRR programs and policies. It’s also important to recognise
that children are not one homogenous group and the challenges they face from disasters
differ if they are a child under the age of five, a girl from a marginalised community or a
child living with a disability. Our programs seek to ensure that the needs and capacities of
all children are considered in how people prepare for, react to, and recover from disasters
and adapt to long term trends. We work to make this happen at all levels – with children,
communities, local and national governments and regional and international organisations.
1 IPCC, 2007: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of
Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, M.L. Parry, O.F. Canziani,
J.P. Palutikof, P.J. van der Linden and C.E. Hanson, Eds., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 7-22.
2 Based on the IPCC definition of adaptation in: IPCC TAR, 2001 a. Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation and
Vulnerability. IPCC Third Assessment Report, Cambridge University Press.
in place that map the hazards in a community and develop strategies to combat them,
make sure people know where to evacuate to, and pre-position emergency supplies,
The children’s own role in DRR such as food and shelter materials in disaster-prone areas. For example, in Afghanistan,
Save the Children works with communities so that they understand the risks of flooding,
In Cuba, as a result of especially for children, and how they can prepare themselves ahead of time. In Vietnam,
Save the Children’s DRR programme,
we help children take part in community meetings to assess risks and hazards; children
children conveyed early warning
messages before hurricanes to help produce risk maps and action plans for schools. Leveraging our skills and experience in the
spread the word of impending storms. education sector, much of Save the Children’s preparedness work is conducted through
In Brazil, Save the Children has taught school-based DRR programs that then extend into surrounding communities.
children to measure rainfall to give early
warning of floods or landslides. Early warning activities give people time to respond to a disaster.
An early response, particularly to slow-onset disasters such as droughts, is not only
In disaster-prone areas of Sri Lanka,
cheaper but more effective. By responding early, families are able to protect their
Thailand, the Philippines and elsewhere,
children have assessed the risks they livelihoods and are therefore in a stronger position to recover. In Ethiopia, Save the
face, helped draw up emergency Children has worked with the government since the1980s to both analyse vulnerability
preparedness plans and maps, took and run early warning systems for food crises. And in Sri Lanka, we worked with district-
part in drills and evacuation simulation level disaster management committees and provided megaphones and loudspeakers to
activities, and raised awareness of the be used as part of early warning systems. Save the Children continues to develop and
risks among their peers and adults implement better vulnerability analysis and early warning systems. We are currently
in their community. As well working in
working with Action Contre la Faim to strengthen integrated food security and nutrition
their communities, children in Thailand
surveillance systems that support better early warning for food price increases.
and Sri Lanka have also advocated for
their national governments to cater
Mitigation activities reduce the risks from disasters.
for children’s needs in their emergency
Vietnamese children who participate in our DRR program have identified areas where
preparedness plans.
flooding was a risk to them and their communities. They have also come up with ways of
reducing the risk, such as building embankments and strengthening bridges. In Myanmar
(Burma), Save the Children is helping to reinforce schools, ensuring children and adults
will have a safe place to seek shelter in the event of another cyclone. And in India Save the
Children has constructed child-friendly disaster shelters in flood and earthquake prone
districts and in a coastal areas the local community was hired to build a 5 km sea wall to
mitigate the risk of flooding and speed up the natural desalination of agricultural land.
Our recommendations
• Governments need to support an age appropriate, child-centred approach to Disaster
Risk Reduction that focuses on the specific risks faced by children.
• Donors and Governments should commit to investing funding in DRR before an
emergency happens to build resilience of children and communities. Climate Change
Adaptation funding should also include DRR as a priority theme and ensure funds directly
reach vulnerable children and communities.
• Donors and national governments need to adopt legal frameworks to make vital
infrastructure including schools, hospitals and housing disaster resilient to save children’s
lives in emergencies.
• National Adaptation Programs for Action (NAPAs) must make explicit reference to
how projected trends of climate change will impact on children and how the NAPAs will
reduce this impact.
• Existing frameworks such as the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child
must be upheld to protect children’s rights during disasters.
• The links between Disaster Risk Reduction, Climate Change Adaptation, livelihoods and
social protection need to be strengthened to ensure better outcomes for children and
build resilience to disasters and climate change.
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