Each year, school buildings collapse or incur significant damage due to natural disasters; resulting in deaths and injuries and long-term socio-economic consequences.
There is global recognition of the need to carry out repairs and retro-fitting in order to make existing schools safer, and to ensure that the large numbers of schools planned or under construction, particularly in developing countries, are inherently safe.
The Roadmap for Safer Schools is part of our ongoing technical support to the Global Program for Safer Schools (GPSS) – a technical assistance program launched by the Global Facility for Disaster Risk and Reduction (GFDRR) that targets countries where there is an ongoing or proposed investment in education infrastructure.
The purpose of this Roadmap is to enable the World Bank to engage with the ministries of education, finance, and public works within a country so as to promote informed investment in the safety of new or existing education infrastructure at risk from natural hazards.
The Roadmap consists of six steps that follow a logical sequence from diagnosis to analysis, opportunity, and investment. Each step will result in a key deliverable or deliverables that will enable the World Bank to build an evidence-based argument.
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Step 1: Education Infrastructure Baseline: to establish a baseline of existing education infrastructure facilities and the demand for new education infrastructure.
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Step 2: Construction Environment: to gain an understanding of the institutional environment and regulatory framework within which education infrastructure is planned, designed, constructed, operated, maintained, repaired, and retrofitted in order to determine the factors placing education infrastructure at risk.
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Step 3: Financial Environment: to gain an understanding of the financial environment within which education infrastructure is planned, designed, constructed, operated, maintained, repaired, and retrofitted in order to determine the factors placing education infrastructure at risk.
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Step 4: Disaster Risk Analysis: to provide Task Team Leaders with a step-by-step guide to quantifying the potential damage and losses to education infrastructure due to adverse natural events of various intensities and frequencies.
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Step 5: Safer School Investment Opportunities: to recommend investment scenarios to the Ministry of Education that integrate safety into both existing and new education infrastructure.
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Step 6: World Bank Engagement: the discussion with the government about World Bank support. This step is not covered in this guidance note.