ANTICIPATORY ACTION FOR EDUCATION: Protecting Learning Before Floods Strike in Pakistan

For children living in Pakistan’s flood-prone districts, heavy monsoon rains often mean much more than rising water levels. Flods often result in closed schools, damaged classrooms, lost learning materials and weeks of missed learning. The devastating 2022 floods exposed the scale of this challenge. More than 17,000 schools were damaged or destroyed, disrupting learning for millions of children across the Indus Basin. While education authorities and humanitarian partners implemented a large-scale response, the floods reinforced an important lesson: acting after disaster strikes is often too late to prevent disruption to children’s education. Riverine flooding in Pakistan can usually be forecast several days in advance, as such the Education Sector Working Group (ESWG) – co-led by Save the Children and UNICEF – started exploring how education could be protected before impacts occurred. With support from Education Cannot Wait (ECW), a pilot was launched across six flood-prone districts in Punjab and Sindh to test whether anticipatory action could help children continue learning during a flood-related emergency.