reducing risks saving lives

8/6/2019 Reducing Risks Saving Lives

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savethechildren.net

Reducing Risks, Saving LivesSave the Children’s approach to Disaster Risk Reductionand Climate Change Adaptation



Children and disasters

Disasters have the biggest impact on the poorest communities and the most vulnerable

people. And it is children who bear the brunt: they may not know when to ee or where

to go; they are exposed to even greater danger if separated from their parents and families;

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

nancially insecure it can lead to children dropping out of school or becoming vulnerable to

malnutrition. In most disasters, more than half of those who are affected or die are children.

A growing threat

Over the past two decades, the number of natural disasters has doubled. Not only are

there more oods, cyclones, droughts and severe cold spells but exper ts also predict

the severity of these events will increase as a result of climate change and environmental

degradation. Glaciers and ice caps are melting, rainfall patterns are changing and drought

conditions are affecting more and more of the world’s land mass.

The impact of non-climate-related disasters, such as earthquakes, is also increasing, due

to urbanisation and population growth. Children’s lives and well-being are also threatened

by epidemiological disasters, such as the avian inuenza pandemic, and technological

disasters, such as the Bhopal industrial catastrophe in India and the recent Fukushima

nuclear accident in Japan.

Children need not face such dire predicaments. Many of the disasters that affect children

around the world are cyclical and to some degree predictable: droughts in the Sahel and

the Horn of Afr ica, ooding in India and the deltas of Bangladesh, and hurricane season

in Central America and South East Asia. Whilst natural disaster cannot be prevented,

communities can be prepared and made more resilient to these events, and their impacts

can be mitigated and moderated through appropriately designed interventions.

What is Disaster Risk Reduction?

Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) is any activity carr ied 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 thatare 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 pr inciple 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 effor ts 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.

Above, left and right

A cyclone drill by community members and the Cyclone

Preparedness Program (CPP), Hassan Nagar Union, Bhola

District, Bangladesh

Jeff Holt / Save the Children

Middle panel, left

Operation Reach Summer Day Camp program at the

Lower Coast Algiers Community Center, Louisiana.The goal of the workshops is to ease anxiety related

to the upcoming hurricane season by providing children

with information and resources

Susan Warner / Save the Children

Middle panel, right

Kids at the Crosstown Learning Center, Oklahoma test

new whistles included in backpacks provi ded to them by

Save the Children as part of their disaster preparedness

program. The backpacks contained supplies for disaster

preparedness like ashlights, hygiene items, teddy bears

and whistles

Michael Wyke / Tulsa World

Third panel, left

A young child eats some Plumpynut, a high-nutrition

food for severely malnourished children, in southernEthiopia. Global shortages of food and higher prices

are drastically reducing children’s access to health care,

nutrition and education which they need to thrive

Colin Crowley / Save the Children

Third panel, right

Children perform dances Vietnam as part of a ood

recovery and disaster risk reduction programme

in a preschool supported by Save the Children

in Northern Vietnam

AB Kyazze



What is Climate Change Adaptation?

There is no scientic ambiguity to the fact that the world’s climate is warming and that this

warming over the past 50 years is attr ibutable in part to man’s activities1. There is a wide

consensus that this warming will lead to changing rainfall patterns, rising sea levels, increased

spread of tropical disease, loss of biodiversity and increased frequency and amplitude of

weather related natural disasters.

It is recognized that there are both areas of convergence and divergences between

CCA and DRR. CCA programs, accepting the inevitability of a changing climate, areactivities which aim to make adjustments in natural and human systems in response to

actual or expected climate stimuli and their effects2. Adaptation can be as much about

exploiting benecial opportunities as well as guarding against harm. For Save the Children,

adaptation is principally about practical measures in programming, policy and advocacy

which reduce vulnerabilities or increase resilience of children and their communities from

the negative effects of climate change. DRR and CCA are not mutually exclusive but in

fact interdependent; a CCA project may be just as vulnerable to natural hazards as any

other project and therefore needs a DRR component to protect the CCA investment. To

address the risks and uncertainty predicted by climate change, both DRR and CCA analysis

and programming must attempt to factor in the unpredictability of what may happen in the

future as the planet continues to warm.

Save the Children’s approach to DRR and CCA

Children are particularly at risk in a disaster and vulnerable to the incremental impacts of

climate change. It is essential that their immediate and longer-term survival, protection and

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 nd 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 specic 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 ve, 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.

What do DRR and CCA entail?

Most DRR and CCA work falls into ve main categories:

Preparedness activities enhance people’s ability to deal with a disaster.

These include ensuring that communities and local government have emergency plans

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. Parr y, 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 denition of adaptation in: IPCC TAR, 2001 a. Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptat ion and

Vulnerability. IPCC Third Assessment Report, Cambridge University Press.

DRR saves lives

In 2007, Cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh

killed around 3,500 people. But a year

later, a similarly powerful Cyclone

Nargis in Myanmar (Burma), claimed

more than 146,000 lives. Given thesimilarity in geography and population

density in the two countries, why was

there such a huge difference in the

death tolls from the two disasters?

In Bangladesh, around 1.5 million

people on the coast were able to ee

to shelters before the storm hit. The

government’s early warning system

included broadcasting messages on the

radio, mobilising volunteers and making

announcements wi th megaphones.

The government had learned from terrible experiences. Cyclone Gorky

hit the coast of Bangladesh in 1991,

claiming more than 138,000 lives.

Before that, in 1970, Cyclone Bhola

killed more than half a million people.



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,

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 ooding,

especially for children, and how they can prepare themselves ahead of time. In Vietnam,

we help children take part in community meetings to assess risks and hazards; children

produce risk maps and action plans for schools. Leveraging our skills and experience in the

education sector, much of Save the Children’s preparedness work is conducted throughschool-based DRR programs that then extend into surrounding communities.

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

cheaper but more effective. By responding early, families are able to protect their

livelihoods and are therefore in a stronger position to recover. In Ethiopia, Save the

Children has worked with the government since the1980s to both analyse vulnerability

and run early warning systems for food crises. And in Sr i Lanka, we worked with distr ict-

level disaster management committees and provided megaphones and loudspeakers to

be used as par t of early warning systems. Save the Children continues to develop and

implement better vulnerability analysis and early warning systems. We are currently

working with Action Contre la Faim to strengthen integrated food security and nutr itionsurveillance systems that support better early warning for food price increases.

Mitigation activities reduce the risks from disasters.

Vietnamese children who participate in our DRR program have identied areas where

ooding 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 ood 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 ooding and speed up the natural desalination of agricultural land.

Activities to promote resilience enhance communities’ capacity to cope and

recover after a disaster strikes.

Save the Children has pioneered the Household Economy Approach (HEA), which can

predict food crises by understanding the impacts of droughts on the ability of different

groups of people to access food for their families. As par t of our work in social protection,

we annually transfer food or cash to reduce the risk of food cr isis among poor families.

We are also piloting innovative approaches to insurance to protect vital assets of the

poorest people. In Zimbabwe, due to the increased of droughts, we encouraged farmers

to use drought-resistant crops.

Activities that support communities’ adaptive capacity to predicted

climate change trends.

Save the Children is working with communities to enhance their resilience and support

adaptation to the impacts of climate change. In Mozambique, our cash grants and training

is supporting diversication away from natural resources-based livelihoods. We are also

conducting operational research on how to improve water management to mitigate the

The children’s own role in DRR

In Cuba, as a result of

Save the Children’s DRR programme,

children conveyed early warning

messages before hurricanes to help

spread the word of impending storms.In Brazil, Save the Children has taught

children to measure rainfall to give early

warning of oods or landslides.

In disaster-prone areas of Sri Lanka,

Thailand, the Philippines and elsewhere,

children have assessed the risks they

face, helped draw up emergency

preparedness plans and maps, took

part in drills and evacuation simulation

activities, and raised awareness of the

risks among their peers and adults

in their community. As well working in their communities, children in Thailand

and Sri Lanka have also advocated for

their national governments to cater

for children’s needs in their emergency

preparedness plans.



effects of climate change. In Guatemala, Save the Children works in watershed protection

involving activities such as nursery establishment and management, the formation of

community committees to monitor watersheds, and tree planting. We are working with

the Tropical Forest Group to explore opportunities for climate nance in the rangelands

of Ethiopia. Save the Children is also a member of the Africa Climate Change Resilience

Alliance (ACCRA) with Oxfam, CARE, World Vision and the Overseas Development

Institute (ODI) which seeks to understand how existing social protection, livelihoods and

DRR interventions build adaptive capacity. In addition, we are a member of a number of global and regional consortia which collectively try to increase the evidence base of the

impact of Climate Change on children and communities. Information gathered is used to

inuence governmental policies and national development practice.

Save the Children reduces risk through ve areas of focus:

Advocacy and Policy – ensuring that government plans take into account the needs

of children in disasters. For example, in Vietnam, to ensure that the needs of children are

considered Save the Children has successfully advocated for and supported the par ticipation

of the Head of the Children’s Division from the Department of Social Welfare in the

National Disaster Committee. In Asia Save the Children is part of a ASEAN Partnership

Group (APG) which is a consortium of international NGOs that supports the implantationof the ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response (AADMER)

which is a regional action plan for the implementation of the Hyogo Framework for Action.

We are also working closely with the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation

(SAARC) to develop a children and disasters framework.

Institution Strengthening – ensuring that relevant institutions are able to implement

effective policy around children and disasters and CCA. For example, in Indonesia, Save the

Children has piloted primary school curriculum around DRR and worked with the Ministry

of National Education to develop a national curriculum and teacher trainer guides. Similar

work is being carried out in Laos, Timor Leste and the Philippines.

Local Government & Partners Capacity Building – ensuring that these crucial agencies

have the skills necessary to protect children during their preparation for disasters and their response. For example, in Colombia, we trained community leaders and local

authorities on child protection in emergencies to ensure that children’s needs and r ights

are considered in preparing for and responding to disaster.

Community – empowering communities and families to mitigate identied risks of

disasters. For example, Save the Children works with community based DRR committees

to conduct hazard, vulnerability mapping exercises and develop DRR preparedness plans

and strategies to reduce disaster r isk. We also ensure children are represented in these

groups so their voices are heard. In Tajikistan, communities are given small grants to plan

out mitigation activities which decrease the vulnerability children face during a disaster.

Left

Students at Ban Talaynork School in Ranong province,

Thailand, crosscheck a “risk and resource” community

map they developed showing areas that are at risk

and those that are safe

Save the Children

Right

Fatema, a water and sanitation eld facilitator, instructsLimon and Nayeem, both age eight, on proper hand

washing techniques at a school-based awareness session

in Bangladesh

Jeff Holt / Save the Children



savethechildren.net

Children’s Role in Disasters – allowing for the meaningful participation of children

to increase their resilience. For example, in the United States of America, our school-based

program focuses on children creating family plans and builds on children’s natural potential for

resilience. In Myanmar (Burma), children take part in developing community maps and illustrating

the safest place in the village in the event of another cyclone. In Mozambique, Save the Children

has developed and distributed the ‘River Board Game’, an informative and stimulating way to

teach children about the risk of disasters and how to protect themselves. We also ensure we

reach children who are out of school through clubs and community activities.

Moving forward

Save the Children has made DRR a priority. Over the past ve years we have implemented

DRR and CCA programs in over 35 countries. We aim to invest the equivalent of 10 per

cent of our global emergency response funding on DRR and CCA activities. We currently

have a solid and expanding base of DRR and CCA programs in education, child protection,

livelihoods and emergency response, and we aim to increase our DRR and CCA

programming in health and nutrition to mirror our program prior ities.

Save the Children will seek to incorporate DRR and CCA into i ts program planning

worldwide so that they become standard practice at the local level. We will also build an

evidence base for DRR and CCA models that are replicable, scalable and can be easily

introduced in other countries.

Our recommendations

• Governments need to support an age appropriate, child-centred approach to Disaster

Risk Reduction that focuses on the specic 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 pr iority 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’slives 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.

Left

A young girl plays at school in Northern Vietnam.

Save the Children is focusing on DRR work in Vietnam

following severe oods in October 2007, which destroyed

harvest s and forced many people to leave their homes.

AB Kyazze

Right

A young boy works on a map of his village in theIrrawaddy Delta, Myanmar (Burma). Save the Children

is helping children identify the dangerous areas and safer

places if there is another cyclone. Two thirds of the

children in the village were kille d when Cyclone Nargis

swept across the delta in May 2008

Tina Salsbury / Save the Children

Front cover

Tin Lin Htun (right), eight, works on a map of his village

in the Irrawaddy Delta, Myanmar (Burma). Tin Lin Htun

survived Cyclone Nargis by clinging onto a log. His parents

also survived but he lost three siblings.

reducing risks saving lives

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