UNICEF, CCCCC sign pact to put children at heart of climate action

The Unit­ed Na­tions Chil­dren’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty Cli­mate Change Cen­tre (CC­C­CC) have signed a five-year Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MoU) aimed at strength­en­ing cli­mate ac­tion that pri­ori­tis­es the rights and well-be­ing of chil­dren across the Caribbean.

The agree­ment, signed in Bel­mopan, Be­lize, es­tab­lish­es a frame­work for col­lab­o­ra­tion on child-sen­si­tive cli­mate poli­cies, cli­mate adap­ta­tion, dis­as­ter risk re­duc­tion and re­silient so­cial ser­vices, while al­so in­creas­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for young peo­ple to par­tic­i­pate in cli­mate de­ci­sion-mak­ing.

The part­ner­ship comes as Caribbean coun­tries con­tin­ue to face in­creas­ing­ly se­vere hur­ri­canes, flood­ing, droughts, ex­treme heat and en­vi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion, all of which threat­en chil­dren’s ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion, health­care, safe wa­ter, san­i­ta­tion, nu­tri­tion and pro­tec­tion ser­vices.

UNICEF Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Sajid Ali said cli­mate change is not on­ly an en­vi­ron­men­tal is­sue but al­so a child rights is­sue.

“Chil­dren are among those least re­spon­si­ble for the cli­mate cri­sis yet they bear some of its great­est con­se­quences,” Ali said. “This part­ner­ship with the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty Cli­mate Change Cen­tre will help en­sure that cli­mate poli­cies, in­vest­ments and pro­grammes across the re­gion put chil­dren at the cen­tre and strength­en the ser­vices and sys­tems they re­ly on every day.”

Un­der the agree­ment, the or­gan­i­sa­tions will work to­geth­er to strength­en child-sen­si­tive cli­mate gov­er­nance and sup­port cli­mate-re­silient ed­u­ca­tion, health, nu­tri­tion, wa­ter, san­i­ta­tion and hy­giene (WASH) sys­tems. The part­ner­ship will al­so pro­mote child-re­spon­sive so­cial pro­tec­tion mea­sures, dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness, re­search, re­source mo­bil­i­sa­tion and knowl­edge shar­ing on cli­mate re­silience.

Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty Cli­mate Change Cen­tre, Dr Col­in Young, said the agree­ment ad­dress­es an area that has of­ten been over­looked in cli­mate re­silience plan­ning.

“It is a well-known fact that chil­dren and youth have not been a cen­tral fo­cus of cli­mate re­silience pro­gram­ming, ei­ther re­gion­al­ly or glob­al­ly,” Young said. He added that UNICEF’s ex­pe­ri­ence in ad­vo­cat­ing for chil­dren’s rights com­ple­ments the Cen­tre’s cli­mate re­silience strat­e­gy and will strength­en re­gion­al ef­forts.

A ma­jor com­po­nent of the part­ner­ship will fo­cus on im­prov­ing cli­mate-re­silient san­i­ta­tion ser­vices across the Caribbean through ev­i­dence-based ad­vo­ca­cy, ca­pac­i­ty build­ing, knowl­edge shar­ing and cli­mate fi­nanc­ing ini­tia­tives.

The or­gan­i­sa­tions will al­so pro­mote youth lead­er­ship by sup­port­ing chil­dren, ado­les­cents and mar­gin­alised groups to de­vel­op the knowl­edge and skills need­ed to con­tribute to cli­mate so­lu­tions and re­gion­al pol­i­cy dis­cus­sions.