Table of contents
Investing in Young Children: An Essential–But Neglected–Component of Adaptation and Resilience
Opportunities For Child- and Family-Smart Finance
- Opportunity 1. Invest in Child- and Family-Sensitive Climate Infrastructure
- Opportunity 2. Support a Collaborative Research Agenda to Inform Child-Centered Adaptation and Resilience Funding
- Opportunity 3. Integrate Existing Frameworks into High-Level Plans and Investment Decisions on Adaptation and Resilience
Why Children and Families Must Be at the Center of Adaptation Financing
Healthy, resilient children and families are the foundation of healthy, resilient communities. Ensuring child-centered action on climate change will create cleaner air and water, more green space and shade, healthier buildings, communities better prepared for extreme weather events, and much more: all benefits that ripple out far beyond the individual child and family. – U.S. Early Years Climate Action Plan
Investing in Young Children: An Essential–But Neglected–Component of Adaptation and Resilience
Since 2021, almost $US1.3 trillion per year has been directed to addressing climate change. Most of this financing has been channeled towards mitigation, but adaptation and resilience are now receiving greater attention. This growing attention must include a greater focus on the needs of children and families. [1] We argue for a new concept within the adaptation agenda: child- and family-smart climate finance.
Adaptation and resilience are long-term global responses to climate disruption that seek to protect people, livelihoods, and ecosystems. Increasing the resilience of children and their families and the infrastructure that supports them is a vital part of adaptation.
Parties to the Paris Agreement acknowledge that adaptation action must consider groups that are uniquely exposed to climate-related risks, including pregnant women, young children, [2] and their families. Yet from 2006 to March 2023, just 2.4% of climate finance from key multilateral climate funds—a cumulative US$1.2 billion, or US$70.6 million annual average (US$0.03 per capita)—covered child-responsive activities. Only 0.5% of global climate finance is allocated to child- and family-sensitive adaptation, and only 0.01% to child-centered disaster-risk reduction. Moreover, child-centered climate adaptation at the community level is a nascent field of policy and practice that receives meager attention from stakeholders at every level.
Opportunities For Child- and Family-Smart Finance
Investment in adaptation and resilience for children affected by climate change remains alarmingly low. We urge decision-makers to implement a new approach to adaptation and resilience funding: child- and family-smart climate finance. This approach puts the needs of children and families at the forefront.
By directing a significant portion of adaptation and resilience finance towards young children, families, and the systems that serve them, child- and family-smart finance improves immediate outcomes and builds healthy communities and long-term adaptive capacity.
In this section, we outline three immediate opportunities to implement child- and family-smart finance and offer some real-world examples of this approach in practice. The next section provides the background: why it’s important to make children and families central to decisions on adaptation financing.
Opportunity 1. Invest in Child- and Family-Sensitive Climate Infrastructure
Existing infrastructure needs significant adaptation and retrofitting to withstand the challenges posed by climate change, which disrupt families’ daily lives and livelihoods during disasters. Infrastructure that serves young children and families typically cuts across multiple sectors and includes child care facilities; maternal, pediatric, and family practice facilities; parks and playgrounds; sidewalks and bike lanes; and shade structures.
Investing in climate-resilient infrastructure is essential for the immediate safety and well-being of young children and for ensuring long-term sustainable development and health benefits for them and their families. As multilateral climate finance facilities, development agencies, NGOs, and other international entities support countries’ efforts to build climate-resilient infrastructure, they should ensure that planning and execution center on the needs of young children, families, and their communities.
Audits determining infrastructure needs that serve young children and families are essential.
What this looks like in practice
Investing in Monitors to Improve Air Quality and Children’s Health in Latin America
Extreme heat exacerbates and traps air pollution, which decreases the quality of air that children breathe and impacts their health. Aires Nuevos, a Latin American network, is reducing children’s exposure to air pollution by using air quality sensors. The network comprises 42 local governments and 14 universities from 8 Latin American countries. Its data-driven approach informs such policies as diverting heavy traffic near schools, reducing emissions, and establishing low-emission zones. Early evidence suggests significant success in reducing children’s exposure to air pollution.
Investing in Natural Play Spaces in Brazil
Green spaces improve air quality in cities and mitigate the effects of extreme weather conditions by reducing heat and providing shade and moisture. One example is green and nature-based play spaces, which make local landscapes and vegetation central to their design so that children experience nature as they play.
- The Alana Institute, in partnership with the Van Leer Foundation through the Urban95 initiative, created natural play spaces in underprivileged neighborhoods in 7 Brazilian municipalities. Since then, some of the municipalities have adopted this approach as public policy and extended its reach to new areas and 6 new municipalities.
- Brazil’s fourth-largest city, Fortaleza, has built two natural parks and is investing US$2.5 million to expand the initiative under the Fortaleza Mais Verde project.
- The municipality of Caruaru has built two natural parks near the Municipal Centers for Early Childhood Education, which connect schools to external public spaces and expand children’s access to the city. The parks were built through a collaborative and participatory approach informed by children and the local community.
Adapting Tirana’s Urban Landscape into Safe and Adaptive Play Spaces
Previously a car-jammed and polluted city, Tirana, Albania, is transforming. Tirana’s mayoral office adopted an “urban acupuncture” approach, which entails implementing interventions like car-free days. This approach to sustainable urban development reflects the city’s goal of becoming not only resilient in the face of climate extremes but also a nurturing ground for the next generation of leaders, thinkers, and innovators.
- The city has dealt with an overwhelming number of illegal parking lots by converting them into child-friendly areas and parks, which act as mini-oases inside neighborhoods. These areas cool streets and reduce air pollution in the places where children play.
- The city has planted 1 million trees, creating a green belt and natural barriers.
- In response to extreme weather, Tirana has constructed 40 schools that double as community centers, leveraging cutting-edge technology to monitor environmental health and capitalizing on its roles as European Youth Capital and City of Sports to engage youth in vital discussions on health, climate change, and environmental stewardship.
- The city is retrofitting and adapting existing spaces. For instance, it made its main plaza, Skanderbeg Square, a car-free, pedestrian-only space with a focus on stormwater management and retention and repurposed an underused historical landmark into a hub for climate innovation. It is also developing accessible 15-Minute Neighborhoods and revitalizing urban green spaces.
Opportunity 2. Support a Collaborative Research Agenda to Inform Child-Centered Adaptation and Resilience Funding
More research is needed into the threats that climate change poses to young children and their families. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has called for more data to inform better assessments of how climate change affects children. However, the fragmentation of child and family-serving programs and interventions makes it challenging to assess system-level needs for effective adaptation and resilience financing.
Adaptation and resilience funds should be directed towards a research agenda focused on young children and families that generates data segregated by gender and age. That agenda might include support for health studies, community convenings, and participatory climate planning that inform adaptation and resilience financing. These processes need to effectively, and equitably, include young children and their families as stakeholders, considering them as a distinct group.
What this looks like in practice
Child-Centered City Climate Policy Convenings
Capita convenes policymakers, practitioners, and researchers in cities around the globe to center young children and families in their climate adaptation plans. These meetings address local needs and opportunities, help build local networks across cities, and—critically—bring in a range of voices including city planners. To date, Capita has held convenings in Cape Town, South Africa; Monterrey, Mexico; and New Delhi, India. The South African convening has propelled the development of the South Africa Early Childhood Climate Action Alliance.
Microresearch on Children’s Participation in Climate Action in the Asia-Pacific Region
The Asia-Pacific Regional Network for Early Childhood (ARNEC) has spearheaded microresearch in four countries (Bhutan, India, Pakistan, and the Philippines) to generate comprehensive empirical evidence that bolsters the active participation of young children in climate and environmental discourse and actions. The studies delved into the perceptions and attitudes of communities and stakeholders, assessing their preparedness to respond to crises induced by climate change. The studies also examined the risks and challenges faced by vulnerable populations, shedding light on young children’s crucial role in shaping sustainable solutions for a resilient future.
Opportunity 3. Integrate Existing Frameworks into High-Level Plans and Investment Decisions on Adaptation and Resilience
Current adaptation and resilience investment in young children’s health, education, and social protection is limited. For instance, Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) are dominated by agriculture and infrastructure budgets, representing 49% of financing across recorded NDCs. In contrast, health represents just 2%, while education and social protection have no specific budget lines. Just one-third (34%) of NDCs are child-sensitive, with minimal reference to children from 0-8 years.
Existing care and children-centered frameworks can guide investment decisions. One example is the Nurturing Care Framework (NCF) for Early Childhood Development published by the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the World Bank Group in 2018. The NCF outlines the five critical aspects of care that young children need to thrive: good health, adequate nutrition, opportunities for early learning, responsive caregiving, and security and safety. It also suggests strategic actions that governments, civil society, communities, and others can take to ensure that children receive nurturing care. The NCF is helpful as a guide to interrogating the impact of climate change and environmental degradation on children. It can be used to evaluate impact and align early childhood development with policy, programs, services, and funding opportunities.
Other frameworks, like Proximity of Care Design Guide, Cities for Children Framework, Access for All: Babies, Toddlers and Their Caregivers, and Child-Centered Urban Resilience Framework, can also provide deeper insights for investment decisions.
Conclusion: Child- and Family-Smart Finance Can Increase Well-Being, Boost Climate Adaptation, and Promote Resilience for All
While young children have long been noted as a population most impacted by the effects of climate change, they have never been a priority in funding for adaptation and resilience. This omission harms children’s health, education, and development and misses a tremendous opportunity to leverage those funds for positive community- and society-wide sustainable development and resilience.
We need urgent action to rapidly scale climate finance that delivers for our young children, especially those most affected across climate-vulnerable regions. Through child- and family-smart finance, we can deliver investments that build the resilience of individual children, households, communities, and nations.
Young children and their families can no longer be an afterthought in adaptation and resilience investment: they must be front and center.