The challenge
Kyrgyzstan faces diverse climate and disaster risks due to its mountainous terrain, including earthquakes, floods, landslides and avalanches. These are exacerbated by climate change.
Vulnerable regions like the Fergana Valley are prone to landslides and flooding, while higher areas face risks from avalanches and glacial lake outburst floods. Fire and air pollution pose threats to children’s well-being, particularly in urban centres like the capital city of Bishkek.
In recent years, Kyrgyzstan has witnessed a climate change-exacerbated surge in the frequency and magnitude of these natural disasters. Indeed, the country is now experiencing 3,000 to 5,000 natural disasters every year.[1] These hazards result in loss of life, infrastructure damage, and disruption to critical social services.
The high dependence on glacial melt water for agriculture and energy, the importance of natural resources for rural livelihoods, and the energy requirements for pumping water exposes children throughout the country to hazards to health, education, nutrition and protection.
All these risks are exacerbated by climate change, resulting in real threats to the well-being of children. They include higher susceptibility to vector-borne diseases, undernutrition, and diarrhoea; respiratory infections caused by air pollution; and physical danger associated with flooding and landslides.
The lifelong effects of these threats on children include reduced physical and cognitive development and long-term mental and physical health complications, poorer grades and, subsequently, a lower lifetime earning potential.
These trends can be expected to worsen with climate change, placing more children at risk of deprivation, hardship and reduced access to services. Climate change is likely to worsen the situation for children due to both a reduction in the national budget for investment in children’s services, and an increase in the numbers of children requiring government assistance.
Public services such as schools, health centres and social support services essential to attaining children’s rights and wellbeing are already underfunded, especially in rural areas and peri-urban settlements. This situation is likely to get worse as water and energy resources become scarce and competition for allocation of government funding increases.
The solution
While many climate change, environment and energy projects include activities that undoubtedly improve the lives of children, very few of those investments have been designed to specifically target children. However, as children make up almost 40 per cent of the country’s population, these investments should increasingly include child-sensitive indicators for planning, monitoring and reporting.
For the next generation to become more climate resilient and environmentally friendly, we need to invest in children now!
Since independence in 1991, investments to address climate change and environmental issues have seen over $200 million of funding from the government, development banks, multilateral and bilateral sources. Investments were programmed predominantly into the agriculture, water management and natural resource management sectors.
While these most vulnerable sectors have been well targeted, children – the group most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change – generally have not. UNICEF has a very important role to play to address this oversight and ensure that children are engaged as active participants in the fight against climate change, their voices heard and their needs met, in current and future climate change and environment programming.
UNICEF works on evidence generation on the impact of climate change and environmental pollution on children due to the threat of a worsening energy, water, economic situation.
This evidence supports government and non-governmental actors in planning, developing and financing child-sensitive policies related to climate change.
For example, a recent study led by UNICEF revealed that newborns, children and pregnant women are particularly vulnerable to air pollution, which has worsened in Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan. The research conducted in cooperation with Bishkek mayor office, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Natural Resources, Ecology and Technical Supervision offers recommendations to reduce exposure during pregnancy and in the first year of life as a high priority.
UNICEF’s advocacy contributed to adoption of the Plan of Priority Measures to Improve Air Quality in Bishkek for 2024-2025. The plan is intended to enhance air quality by reducing pollutants like transport and heating, improving monitoring and analysis of air pollution, implementing greening initiatives, and developing the waste management system.
On the national level, UNICEF supported the creation of a Working Group on Health and Environment, comprising representatives from the ministries of health, environment, and transport, and academic community.
UNICEF is working with the Ministry of Health on a project to measure health risks related to air pollution in health-care and education facilities in Osh city.
Resources
These resources represent just a small selection of materials on climate change and disaster risk reduction produced by UNICEF and its partners in Kyrgyzstan. The list is regularly updated to include the latest information.
- Kyrgyz Republic – Vulnerability | Climate Change Knowledge Portal (worldbank.org)
- Assessment of safety in school and pre-school education institutions
- Climate Landscape Analysis for Children
- The Climate Crisis is a Child Rights Crisis
- Magic Journey cartoon series on climate change
https://www.unicef.org/kyrgyzstan/climate-change
