Critical Issues for Children: Natural disasters across the Americas and Caribbean region, Colombia’s conflict and Haiti’s instability continue to be the causes of lost lives, lost means of living, internal displacement, uprooted basic infrastructure and, even more gravely, children, youth and women continuing to be the most vulnerable and the most affected by these situations. Planned Humanitarian Action for 2008:
Capacity-building of national counterparts, subregional bodies, IASC partners and UNICEF Country Offices regarding UNICEF’s Core Commitments for Children in Emergencies (CCCs) for cluster-specific response: The UNICEF Regional Office for the Americas and the Caribbean (TACRO) will provide technical assistance and training to government counterparts, Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) partners and UNICEF Country Office staff regarding the approach to be adopted on rights and other specific issues. In addition, the regional tier will facilitate the revision and updating of Country Office emergency preparedness and response planning processes. It is important to point out that a work team in the Regional Office will lead these processes.

Strengthening emergency response to natural disasters and other rapid onset emergencies (incl. contingency planning and regional surge response capacity): UNICEF TACRO will increase its capacity to support Country Offices with rapid delivery of essential supplies and deployment of trained human resources, and improve the regional early alert system. A Regional Emergency Officer will guarantee a constant support. Support to disaster risk reduction initiatives, with focus on education sector: UNICEF TACRO will boost its capacity to mobilize and organize government players and international cooperation of NGOs at regional, subregional, national and local levels in order to support risk reduction activities, mainly in the education sector.