Weathering the storm: Adolescent girls and climate change

This report calls for better integration of adolescent girls’ needs in climate change adaptation and disaster risk management policies and programmes, based on interviews with girls involved in Plan’s programmes in Ethiopia and Bangladesh. The impacts of climate change are different for different populations. While inevitably children everywhere are badly affected, the report illustrates how girls, in particular, are bearing the greatest burden. The report describes how increased climate stresses are exposing a growing number of adolescent girls to very specific risks:more girls and women are dying during disasters; an increasing number are enduring early and forced marriages; more girls are being exposed to sexual violence and the curtailment of their education. Girls’ priorities: The girls were clear on where they felt that policy priorities should be targeted. They want: greater access to quality education where they can learn skills to improve their adaptive capacity; greater protection from violence, especially early forced marriage, sexual violence and forced labour; they want their concerns to be heard and acted upon by policy makers.