HNPW Session | Child Protection in the Context of Climate Crises: Addressing Intersectionality in Humanitarian Action

The climate crisis exacerbates child protection risks, threatening the safety, mental health, and psychosocial well-being of children, as well as exacerbating inequity through its intergenerational impacts. The Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action (the Alliance) recently conducted a Learning Needs Analysis on the intersectionality of the climate crisis and child protection, recognising that the climate crisis is a threat multiplier for children and adolescents. 

The analysis ascertained that the climate crisis increases risk factors for children and their families, such as displacement, food insecurity and loss of livelihood, while affecting access to essential services due to the damage of infrastructure and disruption of services. This could be further worsened in humanitarian settings where children are already affected by existing child protection risks. The analysis found that climate crises impact children’s protection in several ways, of which the most common are: increased prevalence of negative coping mechanisms, including child labour, child marriage, trafficking, child recruitment and psychological distress. Then it urged the need of adaptation in child protection programming to better respond to increased risks to children affected by the climate-induced disasters in humanitarian settings

This session explores the intersection of child protection and climate crises in humanitarian contexts through the following three components:

1. Draw insights from the 2024 Learning Needs Analysis (LNA) on the intersectionality of the climate crisis and child protection conducted by the Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action
2. Deep diving the into the evidence on increased child protection risks in climate-induced disasters
3. Bring in local and/or national organizations to learn good practices on adapting child protection programmes in climate crisis contexts / climate-induced disasters in existing humanitarian contexts

The discussion will highlight the impacts of climate-induced crises on children's protection, and good practices on the adaptations needed in child protection programming.

Expected Outcomes:

• Increased understanding of the intersectionality of child protection and climate crises.
• Learning from examples of adaptations to enhance child protection in climate-affected humanitarian settings.