Climate Change Exposes Children to Extreme Poverty

A report by the National Council for Children’s Services (NCCS) says that children in drought and famine ravaged districts are suffering from malnutrition and diseases complicated by hunger than ever before. Slightly more than half of Kenya’s population of nearly 35 million people is below 18 years.

The NCCS report identifies illnesses such as diarrhea, anemia, skin and respiratory complications as some of the ailments affecting children. Turkana, with a malnutrition rate of between 85 and 93 percent, is the worst affected. Conducted in districts worst affected by hunger, the assessment also reveals that school enrolment in most districts has dropped dramatically due to famine with early childhood centers and primary schools recording the highest dropout rates.

Kenya is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), adopted by the United Nations in 1989. The Articles of the Convention as well as the Guiding Principles aim to ensure child survival and development. Kenya is also a signatory to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

It is against this background that the Day of the African Child marked on 15 June, 2009, made appeal to African countries to tackle issues affecting children. Dubbed the UN Millennium Campaign, African states, civil society organizations and the private sector were all challenged to tackle child and maternal mortality, school dropout, gender inequality and poor standards in schools with utmost urgency.

The Millennium Development Goals are an ambitious agenda for reducing poverty and improving the lives that world leaders agreed on at the Millennium Summit in September 2000. The second Goal of Achieving Universal Primary Education, for example, has a target to ensure that all boys and girls complete primary education. The fourth Goal of Reducing Child Mortality has a target to reduce by two-thirds the mortality rate among children under five.

Given such humane and noble aspirations, it should be a source of great concern for every man and woman that 50,000 children in Africa risk loosing their lives before they reach the age of five while a staggering 38 million others of school-going age are still out of school. It is in this context that concerns about the possible negative economic and social consequences of response measure to climate change were recently raised in the just ended climate change talks held in Bonn.

The suffering of the innocent, especially women and children, is a pain to most souls. To paraphrase a Burmese man, Sai Kur Sang, we do not want our children to suffer like us; we want them to survive and have better lives. There is growing global awareness about the impacts of climate change but very little action. As a health issue, for example, the impacts of climate change are not going just to be felt in some distant future, but are affecting our lives and those of our children here and now. Those most at risk are the climate-cum-political refugees like the children in Shalom City, a refugee camp for tens of thousands in Kenya.

Some positive and encouraging steps in the right direction are already being undertaken. Not too long ago, through the initiative of a number of institutions and NGOs, Nepalese women and children had an opportunity to use filmmaking to research the impacts of climate to their communities and create videos to campaign for what would most help them to adapt to climate change (Tamara Plush, 2009). These and similar kinds of initiatives should and must be supported both in words as well as in deeds if they are to make significant difference to the affected communities.

The Earthchild Institute recently launched a very innovative programme dedicated to children and the environment. We would like to recognize what they are doing and urge the rest of us, each one of us, to give serious thought at what our individual actions may mean to this and future generations. As Mahatma Gandhi once said "if we are to reach real peace in the world, we shall have to begin with children". Similarly, a renowned pediatrician, Prof Anthony Costello, recently cautioned in a report published in the Guardian that if we do not act conscientiously, "we are setting up a world for our children and grandchildren that may be extremely turbulent".

Climate Vulnerability

A proposal to use Environment Vulnerability Index (EVI) as a yardstick, as has been suggested in some circles, to distribute adaptation funds is only a good idea at face value. Its appeal stems from the notion that it confers "objectivity" in the management of finance for adaptation expected to be disbursed through the Global Environment Facility (GEF). That might very well be true, but only up to a point. The fact of the matter is the shoe wearer knows where it pinches most.

Local communities have a very sophisticated measure of their vulnerability to climate. Take, for instance, the thousands of pastoralists currently on the move (migrating) in the Sahelian countries in search of food and pasture. Recurrent drought due to failed long and short rains has resulted in mass starvation and loss of valuable livelihood assets, particuarly livestock. These folks know what their Climate Vulnerability Index (CVI) is! The fisher folks off the coast of Mombasa who used to harvest as much as 30 kilograms of shrimp per day but now have to settle for a tenth the amount because the mangrove estuaries and coastal habitats, home to shrimps and other crustaceans, are under threat! They too know their CVI.

What is my point? Creating another tier in the decision-making process for adaptation financing does very little to deliver urgently needed resources to those in greatest need and who are already experiencing climate change impacts. At the very minimum it delays what is by all estimation overdue. Such actions do not bode well with the on-going negotiations for a post-2012 climate agreement. Instead of "throwing more spanners in the works", the global community ought to be looking at simplifying (without necessarily compromising frugality) processes within existing funding mechanisms. Why not simply ask the victims!

Africa and China

Three years back, while doing an assignment for the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and the Southern Africa Development Bank (SADB), I had difficulty sourcing literature on Sino-African relations. Even a visit to the Northwestern University Library in Chicago could only yield a single chapter! This was all the more surprising given that China has had relationship with Africa going back several decades. By comparison, there is no shortage of literature on Africa's relationship with Europe.

So, when we convened in Nairobi to discuss the contribution of Development Studies to policy development particularly in Kenya based on the experience of Institute for Development Studies (IDS) University of Nairobi, but also more generally in the developing world following the experiences of the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, it was not surprising that the question of Sino-African relations came up. At the time, I observed that China was ready for Africa but Africa was not ready for China.

To illustration what I meant, it is useful to reflect back on South Africa under apartheid and the rest of Africa. Throughout much of the 1970s and 1980s the Frontline States as well as majority of African countries clamored for the release of Nelson Mandela and end of apartheid. Following negotiations freedom finally came in 1994 following the first free elections that saw President Nelson Mandela elected to office. The past 15 years has witnessed South Africa's balance of trade with the rest of Africa has grown in leaps and bounds. South African goods and outlets are common places in Botswana, Dar es Salaam, Harare, Kampala, Nairobi and almost every other capital. Brands such as DSTV and MNet dominate the Eastern, Southern and West African markets. Clearly, South Africa, more specifically corporate South Africa, prepared behind the apartheid curtain for post-independence reality. The rest of Africa did not!

There is a parallel to be drawn with emergence of China as a dominant economic force during the last two decades. For years, China had only but a limited economic footprint in the continent. However, during the last two or so decades China has become a major economic player competing with Africa's traditional trading partners for contracts and resources. The nature and pace of China's investments in Africa issomewhat puzzling given the size of her economy. But what is no doubt of concern is the huge trade surplus that China enjoys vis á vie the rest of Africa. All this is happening because Africa is a net importer of manufacturers and an exporter of primary commodities. In a nutshell, Africa failed to capitalize on the four decades of independence to prepare before engaging with China as the latter re-emergenced into a formidable economic giant.

Even more worrying in the trend that Sino-China economic relations has taken, which essentially is “neo-colonial” in character. But perhaps the worst element of this “partnership” is the absence of a clear and strategic African policy framework on the one hand, and a clear long-term strategic and deliberate policy by China, one the other. When will Africa wake up and think long-term and strategic? We can, and must, build on previous attempt to operationally define the principles and mechanisms for the NEPAD.