UNICEF welcomes new Sendai Framework securing children’s role in shaping disaster risk reduction
New York – UNICEF welcomes the new Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction adopted at the third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction. The 2015-2030 framework recognizes the vital role children and youth have to play in reducing risk, strengthening community resilience and shaping legislation to better protect against disasters.
By the end of the 1990s, climate-change related disasters affected approximately 66 million children per year. In the coming decades, this number is projected to reach 200 million. UNICEF has engaged with the development of the Sendai Framework so that the growing exposure of children to disasters is effectively addressed over the coming 15 years.
“Children are especially vulnerable to disasters as they can be adversely affected in so many ways – through exposure to violence and disease, losing access to healthcare and safe water, or missing out on education,” said Ted Chaiban, UNICEF Programme Director. “But children have also proven crucial to reducing risks posed to their communities. The Sendai Framework establishes children and youth as agents of change who must be given the opportunity to shape policies and programmes for risk reduction.”
The conference in Sendai included a parallel Children and Youth Forum where young delegates gathered to ensure government representatives incorporated their views and priorities into the final Framework and its implementation. This culminated with children and youth delegates presenting their positions at a special working session titled “Don’t decide my future without me”.
Youth delegate Mou Herrgard emphasised the importance of including children and youth as stakeholders in the final Framework. “The changes that need to be made on disaster risk reduction are too important to be made without young people,” said Herrgard.UNICEF will work with partners to see that the framework is put into action. Strengthening the resilience of all girls and boys to all shocks, whether disaster, climate or conflict related, is a priority to protect and sustain children’s development.
“We need to take meaningful steps to reduce the risk of disaster to children, while also building up their resilience,” said Chaiban. “This includes implementing comprehensive risk assessments based on disaggregated data, strengthening and decentralizing primary health care systems, prioritizing disaster preparedness in schools and in the education curricula, and improving social safety nets available to children and women who would be most vulnerable should disaster strike.”
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