UNICEF: Stronger measures needed to reduce disaster risk to schools

The World Health Organization and UNICEF have called on governments to strengthen risk reduction measures in four key areas so that health and education systems are able to cope with disasters, including the risks from climate change.

The measures called for are: to build school and health infrastructure according to disaster resilience standards; to conduct assessment of the safety of hospitals and schools and take remedial action to make them safer; to ensure all hospitals and schools implement emergency and disaster preparedness programmes, including staff training and exercises; and to listen to and support communities in disaster risk reduction through education and training.

WHO and UNICEF highlighted these issues during the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, a key gathering of the world's risk reduction community organised by the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) in Geneva from 16-19 June 2009.

Disasters have a major health, educational, economic, physical, and psychosocial impact on the most vulnerable. Besides destroying human lives, disasters damage hospital and school infrastructure, disrupt educational cycles, exacerbate poverty, force children to drop out of school, and affect the resilience of communities.
Example: Sichuan earthquake

Children are among the most at risk and an estimated 175 million children annually will be affected by disasters. In recent years, large numbers of schools have been destroyed by disasters resulting in the loss of lives of children and the stalling of access to education.

For example, the massive earthquake that struck China’s Sichuan Province in 2008 left 88,000 people dead or missing, 400,000 injured, and 11,000 hospitals damaged or destroyed. Over 12,000 schools, or 40 per cent of all schools in Sichuan, were damaged, resulting in thousands of children being killed or injured, and highlighting growing concern over the effects of disasters on education and health. Children also suffer from the psychosocial effects of disasters, hindering their opportunities for development.

"The destruction and carnage inflicted on hospitals, schools, and the people who use them are senseless losses that could have been prevented in many cases," said Dr Eric Laroche, WHO's Assistant Director-General for Health Action in Crises. "Such tragedies can be avoided or reduced if governments adopt disaster risk reduction strategies aimed at protecting people's health. One way of doing this is making hospitals safer by enforcing and implementing building codes to ensure quality construction, training staff to be prepared for emergencies and assessing existing health facilities to learn what, if any, vulnerabilities they may have."
Risk reduction

Risk reduction is an imperative for education as well as health. “The school must be a safe place that protects children and defends their right to education,” said Louis-Georges Arsenault, UNICEF’s Director of the Office of Emergency Programmes. “However, children can also serve as powerful protagonists for change. The integration of disaster risk reduction into the school curriculum equips children with knowledge of the risks, and what actions can be taken to mitigate the risks. Education is therefore an important aspect of risk reduction. Not only is it a child’s right, but education also protects lives and safeguards development gains.”

UNICEF and WHO are active members of the UNISDR system and advocate globally for the protection of schools and hospitals from disasters.