Plan Sweden

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Plan Sweden

• Urban childrens risk and agency

Olle Castell Disaster Risk Management Advisor
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• Plan International

• Child Rights organization
• Active in 50 countries
• Program Units traditionally dominantly rural
• 8 impact areas Disaster Risk Management is one
  of them

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• Child Centered Disaster Risk Reduction

• Children are proportionally affected
• Typically 50-60 of those affected by disasters
• Death and illness, exploitation and abuse,
  failure to meet right to education, development
  and protection
• Children as agents for change
• Children are often portrayed as passive victims
• When provided with accurate support and
  protection they have a great capacity to become
  agents of change
• take the most advantaged and put them in the
  centre of the process

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• Urban Risks

• The worlds population is increasingly urban
• Urban areas are increasingly recognized as being
  susceptible to the impacts od disasters and
  climate change
• A high proportion of urban residents are children

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• Is Disaster Risk Management different in Urban
  areas?

• Plans Toolkits largley developed and adjusted to
  rural contexts
• Is there a need to develop different models for
  urban contexts?

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• Scale of risk

Disaster Small disaster Day-to-day risks
Frequency Infrequent Frequent Every day
Scale gt10 killed 4-9 killed 1-3 killed
Impact on premature death and illness Catastrophic for particular places and times but overall low Significant and under estimated Main cause of premature deatch and serious injury
Intensive Extensive
Resilience versus Disaster Risk Reduction
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• Study on Urban Child Centered Disaster Risk
  Reduction

• Plan International and IIED undertook a study on
  urban childrens risk and agency
• Jakarta, Manila, Dhaka and Kathmandu
• Focus Group Discussions and Interviews with
  street children, working children and children
  living in squatters and slums

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• Who is at risk

• Urban children are generally better off than
  their rural counterparts. However, this is not
  true for hundred of millions of children live in
  urban poverty.

x Vulnerability
Hazard
Risk
Capacity

• Who within an urban population is at risk?
• Those who live and work in overcrowded informal
  settlements concentrated in hazard prone areas
  that lack basic protective infrastructure and
  service
• Children, particularly girls, are
  disproportionally affected
• Street children, working children and children
  living in squatters and slums

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• Urban Slums

• UN Habitat five slum deprivations, lack of (one
  or more)
• Access to improved water
• Access to improved sanitation
• Security of tenure
• Durability of housing
• Sufficient living area (lt 4 people/room)

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• City profiles

Dhaka Kathmandu Jakarta Manila
urban pop. 28 urban 17 50 48
City pop 15.4 M 1 M (3-5 M) 9.7 M 11.9 M
living in slums 60 7 25 37
Pop/km2 20.071 19.375 131.028 18.635
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• Orfan scavengers in Manila
• Parentless street children in Dhaka
• Child labourers in Kathmandu

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• Priority action for reducing urban childrens
  risks

• Enhance access to quality housing and other
  buildings with appropriate basic infrastructure
• Build capacity of families and communities to
  cope with shocks and stresses
• Foster shared planning processes between children
  and adults
• Target beneficiaries based on better
  understanding of the differentials in risk
  between high- and low-income children

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• Particular aspects in Urban DRR programming

• Much is same as usual, byt some things differ
• Common goods sewage system, piped water, public
  transports instead of individual HH solutions as
  pit latries and wells
• More complex public administration
• Closer to central ministries (if in capital)
• Need for strong analysis to reach the most
  vulnerable cant target all
• Proliferation of NGOs
• Dynamic population, migration
• Livelihood different - workers not farmers.
  Need to address worksite environment, factories