While climate change continues to wreak havoc on children and their communities at an accelerating pace, there is a lack of robust evidence on the most promising climate risk solutions tailored to children. Save the Children’s Generation Hope report (2022) stressed that the climate crisis affects children most due to their physical and emotional development, and that children in households affected by poverty, inequality and discrimination are doubly affected. It is urgent to identify and promote successful child-sensitive locally-led climate risk solutions.
In 2023, Save the Children International (SCI) commissioned IRMA to conduct a rapid structured scoping of evidence. Marking the initial phase of a wider SCI effort, this study explored actions across SCI’s six priority sectors: education, child protection, social protection, livelihoods, health, and WASH and contexts involving migration and displacement as well as additional themes.
This study aimed to inform advocacy and Save the Children programme design, enabling the organisation to inform its interventions and research priorities by
- Identifying, reviewing, and consolidating existing evidence on the most promising solutions.
- highlighting gaps in existing evidence and exploring opportunities to generate new evidence.
The study was based on literature available publicly (across 46 academic papers and 73 grey literature documents or provided directly by Save the Children (13 documents) and it collated evidence from 2015 to 2023. This report was developed primarily for Save the Children staff and partners who share the aim of reducing climate risk for children.
In addition to the identification of project activities or actions that were described as “effective” for children, the study strived to ascertain whether there was evidence that the identified solutions exemplified any of the following attributes:
- Acceptability: of the action to the targeted population
- Safety (risk management): the absence of harm or risk caused/ introduced by the action.
- Equity: accounts for diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice.
- Scalability: promise of reproducing at scale (but not “one size fits all”).
- Cost-effectiveness, cost-efficiency, or value for money.
- Locally led: includes local voices as key stakeholders.
- Child-led: includes children as key stakeholders.
This research pinpointed 291 instances of climate risk reduction strategies benefiting children, with solutions tailored to children apparent across all sectors and themes. They were most frequently found in the food security and livelihood (FSL) sector, followed by education and WASH.
The portfolio of climate solutions for children mainly features child-responsive actions, which focus on addressing specific risks and vulnerabilities faced by children through investments in vital social services. In contrast, child-centred solutions—those that explicitly and directly consider children’s needs—were most commonly found in the child protection and health sectors.
The 291 cases do not have equal value and many actions that are weakly scored in this study—or those not yet benefitting from any documentation– may be the most promising solutions of tomorrow.
IRMA’s team for this assignment included Lezlie Morinière, Charlotte Gendre and Isimbi Sebageni.
