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Climate Change Adaptation (CCA)
There is no scientific ambiguity to the fact that the world’s climate is warming and that this warming over the past 50 years is attributable in part to man’s activities. 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. 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 find out what risks they might face and how they might respond to them.
CCA programs are activities which aim to make adjustments in natural and human systems in response to actual or expected climate change and their effects. 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. Disaster Risk Reduction 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 take account of the unpredictability of what may happen in the future as the planet continues to get warmer.
Photo: Save the Children
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RecommendedReducing Risks, Saving Lives. Save the Children's approach to Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation
Disasters have the biggest impact on the poorest and most vulnerable people, and it is children who bear the brunt. Over the past two decades, the number of natural disasters has doubled. Children’s lives are also threatened by epidemiological disasters,
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Case Study: The response of community structures during the Kasese floods
In May 2020, severe flooding in western Uganda has displaced tens of thousands of people. In Kasese district, Save the Children—working closely with District Local Government and with support from the Government of Japan—has been running a Disaster Risk R
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Why Focus on Children: A literature review of child-centred climate change adaptation approaches
Climate change effects have a marked, often acute, impact on children. Not only to their current wellbeing, but also their future. This literature review provides an overview of existing research and practice relating to climate change adaptation approach
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The Global Climate Crisis: A child rights crisis
Climate change arguably poses the single greatest challenge to the realisation of children’s rights, and threatens to undercut decades of hard-won progress to improve their lives. Despite being least responsible for this unfolding crisis, children bear th
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Child-Centred Risk Reduction Research-into-Action Brief: Child-centred climate change adaptation approaches and household and community resilience
The impacts of climate change pose risks to children’s health, safety and survival; education; and family and individual security. However, children are not only passive victims. There is a growing body of evidence that demonstrates how child-centred resp
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Fortaleciendo la Respuesta ante Desastres en el Perú
Lecciones Aprendidas del Fenómeno El Niño Costero 2017 en el Perú aims to strengthen the response to disasters in the country and promote a useful reflection of recurrent phenomena in the context of the climate change. The objective of this research was t
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Children, Do You Know What To Do During Emergencies?
The Philippines is hit by around 20 tropical cyclones every year, state weather bureau PAGASA reported. Aside from typhoons, other forms of natural calamities can happen, such as earthquakes, landslides, extreme flooding, and volcanic eruptions, among sev
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Our Humanitarian Efforts: Overview of our humanitarian work in Bangladesh
Disaster preparedness and risk reduction play a major role in preventing the loss of lives and livelihoods during disasters. Directly and with partners, Save the Children has been preparing vulnerable communities for natural disasters and works with the g
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Child Poverty: What drives it and what it means to children across the world
This new, flagship report looks at the situation of children living in poverty in countries around the world, shining a light on the drivers of child poverty and exploring why it persists, even in some of the wealthiest places. We also hear from children
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Global Report on Internal Displacement 2016
The heightened focus on the hundreds of thousands of refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants who have put their lives at risk to reach Europe has also awakened attention to the phenomenon of displacement. The Global Report on Internal Displacement (GRID) a
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Child Centred Community Resilience: Final evaluation of the Bangladesh Child Resilience Project
Save the Children International (SCI) has been working in Bangladesh over the past three years, supporting girls and boys, their families, schools and local communities in 36 rural and urban communities to build their capabilities to adapt, prepare, and r
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Climate Change in Kenya: Projections, impacts and way forward
Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have been implementing development interventions in the African region for many decades. The effectiveness and sustainability of such interventions are questionable as Africa is still lagging behind other regions of t