UNICEF study finds Caribbean climate plans lack child-specific protections

A new UNICEF study, ‘Child-Centred Climate Analysis for Building Resilience’, reveals that climate plans in Barbados and five other Eastern Caribbean nations lack the necessary measures to track if investments are benefiting children. The research, covering Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines, found that none of the studied countries included child-specific indicators or measurable outcome targets in their national plans.

St Lucia’s Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Sustainable Development, Lisa Jawahir, warned that children are on the ‘front lines of a climate crisis that they did not create’. She noted that climate change is a lived reality in the region, impacting education, food security, and family life through flooding, droughts, and water scarcity.

The study highlights significant gaps in climate monitoring infrastructure and child-disaggregated impact data, which may hinder the ability to build evidence-based cases for climate financing. To address these issues, researchers proposed 49 actions, including shock-responsive social protection, climate-smart agriculture, and psychological first-aid training for community actors.