UNICEF Initiates World’s First Child-focused Climate Initiative to Avert Disasters

News Desk

Islamabad: The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) introduced a new child-focused initiative designed to improve nation-level disaster preparedness and better prepare for upcoming climate calamities.

To address the current and escalating effects of the global climate catastrophe, the ‘Today and Tomorrow’ initiative combines funding for short-term resilience and risk prevention programmes for kids.

The project also involves $30 million in risk transfer finance from the insurance market to benefit around 15 million children, youth and women during a three-year pilot period in order to better prepare for future storms.

“We are aware that further climate disasters are imminent. We have no idea where or when they will strike,” UNICEF Deputy Executive Director for Partnerships Karin Hulshof remarked.

“Climate change dangers are no longer speculative. They’ve arrived. And even as we seek to strengthen communities’ resistance to climate disasters, we must improve our ability to anticipate hazards to our children,” she added.

According to UNICEF, youth are a particularly vulnerable group that is among those most impacted by harsh weather conditions.

According to UNICEF’s Children’s Climate Risk Index from the previous year, 400 million kids are currently at high risk of cyclone exposure.

The initiative will concentrate on Bangladesh, Comoros, Haiti, Fiji, Madagascar, Mozambique, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu during the initial three-year pilot.

The project will cost $30 million, and UNICEF is seeking new private and public partners to help it close the growing humanitarian financing gap for protecting children and youth from disasters.

The specific needs of hundreds of millions of children and youth are not being met by the existing risk transfer mechanisms, despite the fact that extreme weather damage perpetuates and intensifies inequality and poverty across generations.

Today and Tomorrow’ is the first pre-arranged and event-based climate disaster risk financing mechanism that specifically targets the “child protection gap” with full support for the future, as promised by the governments of Germany and the United Kingdom under the recently launched ‘G7-V20 Global Shield against Climate Risks’. Additional input by Agencie