Country Scoping Studies to Build Evidence on Children’s Vulnerabilities to Climate Change and Disaster Impacts: PHILIPPINES Report Submitted to the UNICEF by the Manila Observatory 4 September 2014 ABSTRACT The study is part of a UNICEF-sponsored scoping on how are children possibly be at risk to climate and disasters. Aside from the Philippines, four other countries from the Asia and the Pacific1 participated in the scoping project. The Philippines Study is an overview of the climate change trends and the potential impacts on children; highlighting children’s specific vulnerability to climate change that needs to be taken into account in policy development. The research used the framework that states risk is a function of hazard, exposure, and vulnerability (R=f(H,E,V)). Climate change hazards considered in the Study included average temperature changes, average rainfall changes, floods and droughts, landslides and other geophysical hazards. For the exposure, it considered the locations of children by age and exposure to different socio-economic factors (vulnerability) such as household poverty incidence, places where child labor is prevalent, child security is compromised, incidence of malnutrition or hunger; children’s mortality (cause and effect) and children’s development (e.g. education). Common to the five countries are the findings that poverty and geography are strong determinants of vulnerability The results of the Philippine Study revealed that children’s issues are not yet well recognized or incorporated in environmental agenda, whether at the national, regional or local scale. Climate change and their impacts are inextricably linked to the broader sustainable development goals. State’s policies and strartegies must also be responsive to children’s needs, especially towards better adaptation and resilience. At the same time, the Study also noted that because children have unique perspectives of their environment, they can be important actors (“agents of change”) in enhancing community capacity to address climate-related risks such as floods and droughts. Involving children in the design of policy and designing climate change policies with children’s rights in mind are essential to creating policies that do not have unintended negative consequences, or whay we call the “win-win strategies”. 1 Participating countries include the Philippines, Mongolia, Indonesia, Kiribati and Vanuatu,

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