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Resilient Social Services

Risk Mitigation for Vulnerable Groups and Communities


Activities:

  • Mapping of communities that are located in areas that are highly vulnerable to landslides, flooding and other natural disasters.

  • Phased implementation of a plan for the relocation of the vulnerable residents of communities in high risk areas.

  • Repair and retrofitting of homes for the poor, differently-abled and elderly who do not have the means to undertake the repairs necessary to make their dwellings safe and secure.

  • Development of a scheme to provide subsidized home insurance for low-income families.

  • Work with CCRIF and the financial sector to develop small livelihood protection schemes.

  • Provide low-interest loans for the retrofitting of homes and the construction of safe rooms for low-income single parent families.

Inclusive Approaches to Strengthen Community Cohesion and Empowerment

Activities:

  • Promote a higher consciousness (spiritual, theological and culturally inclusive) that underpins respect, dignity and peace among all citizens, ensuring that no one is excluded or left behind – through organizing community groups around civic education, public awareness raising and targeted engagement with vulnerable communities.

  • Engage the ‘influencing sectors’ including faith-based institutions, local and national media and non-governmental agencies to amplify messages and values that promote social cohesion and community resilience.

  • Establish community-based resilience task forces. Community groups work together as an ongoing resilience task force that proactively drives appropriate policy and planning decisions well in advance of a climate event (as opposed to reactively after a climate shock) – to support early warning systems, emergency preparedness, risk assessment and management.

  • Broaden the base of partners and stakeholders to support an inclusive approach to societal resilience – which responds to diverse challenges; builds on the combined efforts of women and men at different levels; and builds trust among people in all their diversity.

  • Work with teachers, parents, children, youth, young adults to revalue cultural identity, lifestyle decisions, consumption choices and equal responsibilities of men and women.

Strengthened Social Service Delivery

Activities:

  • Rationalize the delivery of social services, with the goal of achieving greater synergy and collaboration among executing agencies.

  • Develop a comprehensive beneficiary registry that provides detailed information on all citizens who qualify for support.

  • Strengthen Social Safety Net programs to provide more targeted support to vulnerable persons, with a strong focus on preventative programs and those that seek to break the cycle of inter-generational poverty.

  • Consider the introduction of conditional cash transfer programs where cash payments are linked to resilience building activities by the beneficiaries.

  • Include non-governmental organizations, community-based organizations and faith-based organizations in the delivery of social services at the community level.

  • Develop a strong evidence base to track the effectiveness of the interventions and to identify the areas where new or further support may be required.

  • Provide support for early childhood development and parental skills training among vulnerable groups to improve the likelihood of more favourable learning and school connectedness outcomes for the children.

  • Provide psycho-social support systems for people living with mental illness.

Resilience Through Empowerment and Responsible Stewardship

Activities:

  • Engage grassroots youth, women and at-risk populations in securing equal access to the use of and control over land and land-related decisions.

  • Build community knowledge on land use decisions; including how to plan construction with due regard to environmental concerns such as landslides or avoiding flood prone areas.

  • Engage men and women in soil restoration practices, stewarding of natural biodiversity, shoring of ravine and waterways, prevention of landslides, ensuring that vulnerable and at-risk populations are especially targeted.

  • Provide female-headed households with secure and equal access to resources for their autonomy, self-improvement, and economic well-being as a foundation to resilience

  • Engage rural communities, with attention to young men, to strengthen their understanding of how biodiversity loss and conservation practices impact their lives and to take farming decisions alongside women and families to build ecologically sound livelihoods resilience.

Strengthened Community Disaster Recovery and Response

Activities:

  • Train and educate first responders to protect human rights and work in partnership with affected communities.

  • Involve affected communities in recovery leadership and decision making, so as to empower women, men, youth, the elderly and people living with disabilities, and households in informal settlements, who are most likely to be left out of decisions.

  • Acquire, use and share accurate data and other information, including sex and age disaggregated data and data for vulnerable groups, to assess risk and facilitate more focused response and recovery activities and accurate loss and damage assessment.

  • Design risk financing and appropriate insurance schemes to help relieve the recovery burden for low-income households and small businesses.

  • Direct financial and human resources to organized communities that are socially inclusive to conduct recovery planning.

  • Curate spaces for dialogue and commitment between governments and women’s grassroots organizations to improve the implementation of post-disaster recovery programs and policies.

  • Integrate human mobility issues within response and recovery programs and actions.

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