Child-Centred Disaster Risk Reduction
This programme is a long-term strategy for sustainable and resilient development to ensure current and future generations can cope with climate change.
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The Challenge
With children constituting nearly one-third of Viet Nam’s population, higher intensity natural disasters and climate change are having dramatic impacts on their wellbeing and potential. Children are most affected by natural disasters due to their physical and psychosocial vulnerability, disruption of services essential for their development, their high-dependency on parents and other caregivers, limited voice and representation.
“Children need support to influence their futures, claim their rights and voice their concerns at local, national, regional and international levels.”
Children’s role as agents of change to mitigate the impact of climate change is increasingly important. Despite Viet Nam’s impressive economic achievements and a rapid reduction in poverty within the past three decades, increasingly severe weather events and natural hazards have the potential to jeopardize hard-earned development gains - leaving children and women most at risk. While Viet Nam has a growing capacity to respond to rapid onset emergencies, major systemic gaps remain and span key sectors, including child protection, education, nutrition, water and sanitation.
The Solution
UNICEF believes children are the present and future agents of change in Disaster Risk Reduction and resilient development. Children, as stakeholders in the future of Viet Nam, have unique capacities to deal with shocks and stresses by taking an active role in understanding and coping with climate change-related natural disasters.
We are building the capacity of government and partners to take a Child-Centred Disaster Risk Reduction (CCDRR) response that identifies, assesses and reduces the potential loss of lives, health status, livelihoods, assets and services. With this child-centred response, UNICEF is working to keep communities safe through initiatives, such as promotion of the Safe Schools model, community-based child protection systems, raising awareness of natural disasters among children using innovative technologies and youth-led initiatives as well as mapping risks in schools and communities.
“UNICEF is committed to strengthening the resilience of children, families and communities to natural hazards.”
CCDRR is a key long-term strategy for sustainable and resilient development for current and future generations to cope with climate change. It implies better preparing children, families and communities for shocks and effective recoveries. In doing so, it first focuses on vulnerabilities, rather than shocks and stresses, to understand the drivers of inequity and strengthens systems to absorb shocks in the event of natural disasters. At the same time, the capacities and coping mechanisms of communities, families and children are enhanced to bounce back from natural disasters. This investment in resilient development is key to growth, development and social cohesion in Viet Nam as well as achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and Sendai Framework.
Resources
Voices of children from Ninh Thuan
These are the videos produced by the students from Nguyen Binh Khiem, Secondary School in Ninh Thuan. This video project initiated and supported by UNICEF Viet Nam, focuses on raising awareness of students and also encourages action. This is a part of UNICEF climate change programme in Viet Nam called raise their voice in “Building future generations’ resilience and adaptation to natural disasters and climate change".
