A case study of perceptions of climate change impacts and child well-being: Implications for development programming

Abstract

Climate change will affect those most vulnerable in the developing world, and humanitarian relief and development organizations will need to respond. Using a quantitative survey, the attitudes of World Vision staff towards climate change and its risks for children were examined. Results indicate a very strong awareness of climate change and its risks to the key outcome indicator of the organization (child well-being), but there are significant variations within the organization. Specific groups perceive fewer risks to child well-being and may be less supportive of action on climate change. Internal strategies are needed to build necessary commitments to organizational action.

Keywords:

• attitudes
• climate change
• development NGO
• organizational change
• perception
• risk

Notes

WV is a federation of national organizations in developed (support offices – SOs) and developing countries (national offices – NOs), which work together in partnership around the globe. The global centre (GC), the international partnership office, together with regional offices (ROs) around the globe, fulfils a role in coordination, policy-setting and global-level advocacy efforts (World Vision International, 2008, 2009c).

While we recognize that this has potential to bias results as we do not know why some individuals chose not to complete the survey, there is a similar risk in any survey design, random or otherwise. However, we expect that interest in the subject matter was not a significant determining factor in limiting response as individuals were asked by senior staff to complete the survey and one would normally expect compliance with such a request.

The Bonferroni multiple-comparison test enables pairwise comparison of the group means from the analysis of variance while correcting for possible spurious inference due to making multiple comparisons between group means (Stata Corp, 2003; Watson et al., 1990).

With the principal factor method of estimating a factor analysis, it is possible to get some negative eigenvalues and to see cumulative proportions above 1 due to the nature of the estimation process (Higbee, 2002). Correlation analysis of the variables used in the analysis indicated that none were highly correlated.

Recall that the ‘Other’ category included people in administration, IT, finance, human resources and other management roles.