African children are among the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, yet are being excluded from key funding streams to survive in the face of the climate crisis, Unicef said today.
The UN Children’s Fund (Unicef) warned that children under 48 years of age in the 49 African countries surveyed are identified as particularly at risk of suffering the effects of global warming and are being left out of any financial assistance to adapt to the adverse environmental scenario.
The report, “Time for Action: African Children in the Crosshairs of Climate Change,” assesses nations based on children’s exposure to climate and environmental shocks, such as hurricanes and heat waves, and their vulnerability to such changes. Based on their access to essential services.
Physically, they are less able to withstand and survive disturbances, and physiologically, they are more vulnerable to toxic substances such as lead and other forms of pollution.
According to the authors, infants living in the Central African Republic, Chad, Nigeria, Guinea, Somalia and Guinea-Bissau are most at risk.
UNICEF examined how multilateral climate funds allocate their resources and found that only 2.4 percent of this important global climate finance can be attributed to supporting children, with an average value of just $71 million per year.
If the target group was expanded to include young people, the share would rise to just 6.6 percent of the funds’ total expenditure, the agency warned.
Also this Friday, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) called for concrete action to address climate change and human mobility challenges, as the world has entered the era of climate migration, which urgently requires solutions at the continental level.
According to the World Bank, without efficient and sustainable climate protection measures, up to 105 million people in Africa alone could become internal migrants by 2023.