A/HRC/19/63 populations face different levels of risk and have different capacities to recover. 6 A huge proportion of those at risk are children, many of whom are living in low-income countries. Save the Children estimates that over the next ten years, up to 175 million children are likely to be affected by natural disasters each year. 7 Multiple interacting political and socioeconomic factors increase children’s vulnerability to sale and exploitation, and humanitarian crises, such as natural disasters, further increase this vulnerability. 20. Conventional responses to natural disasters are dominated by humanitarian assistance and emergency management activities that meet the immediate physical survival needs of children, such as provision of clean water, food, shelter, clothing and primary health care. While these actions are essential for minimizing loss of life and suffering, particularly in the first 48 hours after a disaster, humanitarian assistance does not necessarily constitute or integrate child protection.8 Humanitarian assistance providers in a natural disaster often lack the knowledge or resources to ensure the short- and long-term protection needs of children, such as protection from harm, abuse and all forms of exploitation, ensuring children have safe places to rest, play, receive education, and are able to participate in decisions related to their daily and future lives. 9 21. Programmatic approaches differ between countries so that organizations and field practitioners are left to improvise responses. Programmes, policies and guidelines for child protection are complex and despite explicit references to child protection in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, their implementation has been the slowest in humanitarian crises. The vast majority of child protection10 responses remain reactive, disorganized and severely underfunded.11 Consequently, there is a critical need for specific management of children’s vulnerability. 22. One of the fundamental stumbling blocks to ensuring child protection is the serious shortage of funding for child protection emergency response work. Child protection services are “consistently underfunded” and levels of funding are “significantly lower than for other humanitarian sectors.”12 United Nations humanitarian agencies and NGOs are therefore severely limited in their capacity to provide vital child protection responses. 13 23. Nonetheless, the issue of child protection in natural disasters provides a unique opportunity to draw attention to the multitude of gaps that exist in programmatic funding, 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 6 OCHA, Tool Kit: Gender Equality, August 2005, available at http://ochanet.unocha.org/p/Documents/OCHA_Gender_Equality_Toolkit.pdf. Save the Children, “Child protection in emergencies,” Fact Sheet, November 2010, available at http://resourcecentre.savethechildren.se/content/library/documents/fact-sheet-child-protectionemergencies. Identifying Gaps - Child Protection in Emergencies: A discussion paper for the Inter-Agency Planning Consultation on Child Protection in Emergencies, Geneva, 13-14 December 2006, p. 15. Save the Children defines child protection as “measures and structures to prevent and respond to abuse, neglect, exploitation and violence affecting children.” In 2008, a workshop of child protection practitioners agreed on the importance of developing a joint working definition of child protection in emergencies. See Strengthening Child Protection Within the Cluster Approach: Lessons learnt, best practices from the field and the way forward, Workshop report, Geneva, 16-18 January 2008, p. 4. Plan International, After the cameras have gone: Children in disasters, 2nd ed., London, 2005, p. i, available at http://www.plan.org.au/mediacentre/publications/research/afterthecameras. Identifying Gaps (see footnote 8), p. 17. The following section provides further information on this issue. CPWG, Too Little, Too Late: Child protection funding in emergencies, 2010, p. 17. Report and summary briefing available at http://oneresponse.info/GlobalClusters/Protection/CP. The report defines underfunding as “the difference between the amount of funds requested through project proposals and the amount of funds received.” Ibid., p. 9.