Children’s Right Over Climate Change : Taking the case of Ethiopian Safety Net Program
In Ethiopia, many agriculture dependent families have a long history of facing the effects of extreme weather events and unpredictable rainfall variations. Disasters disproportionately affect family members including children in the crisis period and afterwards. Regular intervention of humanitarian food aid has offset various crisis levels in assisting vulnerable families with provision of basic survival in-kinds. While this saved lives, it often failed to protect livelihoods, and this became a growing concern. The impact of climate change has attracted a growing number of studies and policy debates to shape the emergency food aid model towards more productive approach of providing conditional and predictable assistance through food security program.
Care givers are still active participants in studies related to impacts of climate change and periodic assessments to inform the safety net provisions. Engaging a diverse web of stakeholders and implementers is important to align programs with its intended purpose. However, Ethiopian children are not often part of consultation regarding climate change or crisis response, at family or community level. While children are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, they are not passive victims.
Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) grants a child who is capable of forming a view the right to express that view freely in all matters affecting him or her; and these views should be given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child. Children growing in CFI families have collective knowledge about many things like what capacities and vulnerabilities exist in their family and the community they live in. I would like to argue that identifying children’s feelings and reactions is not straightforward because caretakers’ decisions often play a key role in informing program designs. The perspectives of children within the field of climate change or its effect on food security have remained unexplored and is vital to better inform how we advance our programming. It is therefore important to work with children (who belong to vulnerable families) to understand children’s experiences and feelings about their own insecurities. Article 12 applies at all times, for example around family decisions and/or as related to a child’s food insecure life.
I would also like to highlight the intersection of children’s other rights, like the right to access information (Article 13), parental responsibilities (Article 18) and the right to life, survival and development (Article 6). Importantly, vital consideration of effective communication among children, parents, communities or local government officials can inform research with inclusive evidence while enabling children (as knowledge holders) to share information and engage them in program designs, implementation, and follow-up. Participation enables children with the opportunity to express their views, engage and influence research processes, in any matter concerning them directly or indirectly. For example, in the aftermath of the tsunami response in Asia[M1] , evidence was provided that demonstrated that children’s engagement in the design and delivery of related disaster-risk-response activities enabled them to play an active role in their communities and managed to minimize the negative impact of the disaster for themselves, within their families and communities. Therefore, the development of feasible models that mainstream children’s engagement—from listening and understanding their perspectives and experiences to supporting their engagement—is important to address the changing needs of children impacted by a change climate. This will also promote a reduction of inequalities among children and promote their future resilience to climate change and other disasters.
Beza Teferra – Ethiopia
Rotary Peace Fellow – Class 32