Planning and management for crises, climate change, and natural hazards

In a world of complex crises, climate change, and natural hazards, educational planning and management can help foster resilience and ensure that all learners can access their fundamental right to quality education, no matter what.

Keep reading to learn more about:     IIEP's approach     Examples of our work

A focus on climate change 

Education is not immune to the effects of climate change. However, planning for adaptation and mitigation measures can help build more equitable and resilient education systems. Education also plays an important role in accelerating climate action. 

Through its crisis-sensitive planning work, IIEP works closely with ministries of education and their partners to develop capacities for risk analyses and to mainstream climate change adaptation measures in educational policies, plans, and programmes. With record levels of global displacement, including from climate change, IIEP pays particular attention to the inclusion of displaced populations in national education systems. The use of data is also providing cutting-edge insights for ministries of education faced with natural hazards and extreme weather events because of climate change. 

To promote sustainable development, IIEP is also working to promote green skills and jobs through its training on Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET).

Our approach

Our approach orients education systems towards being proactive instead of reactive in the face of risks. For climate change, this includes adaptation measures such as building climate-resilient schools and developing contingency plans, as well as environmental sustainability and mitigation measures like integrating climate change into school curricula and ensuring that teachers receive relevant training.

Our integrated capacity development offer for ministries of education and their partners includes: 

• Technical support on mainstreaming climate change into education sector policies, plans, and budgets and collaboration with the Global Partnership for Education on fostering climate-smart education systems, as well as micro-planning to support the selection of where ministries of education build educational facilities or relocate those affected by climate change. 
• Training on the fundamentals of crisis-sensitive planning in multiple languages and using data and information for crisis-sensitive planning. A new course will also address the greening of the Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) sector in Africa. 
• Research and development to create tools and methodologies for climate risk management and use of geospatial data to inform planning.
  
  

Supporting the capacity of ministries of education to plan and implement climate-responsive policies and strategies is more important today than ever before.

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