Guidance Notes on Safer School Construction: Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery

At a time when the frequency and magnitude of extreme climatic events is rising, a growing number of the world’s school-going children are increasingly exposed to natural disasters. Children spend up to 50 percent of their waking hours in school facilities, and all too often schools are not constructed or maintained to be disaster resilient. These Guidance Notes provide a framework of guiding principles and general steps to develop a context-specific plan to address a critical gap to reaching the Education for All (EFA) and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) through the disaster resilient construction and retrofitting of school buildings. The guidance notes briefly address the need and rationale for safer school buildings; recommend a series of suggested steps that highlight key points that should be considered when planning a safer school construction and/or retrofitting initiative; and identify basic design principles and requirements a school building must meet to provide a greater level of protection. The Guidance Notes provide a list of key resources for more detailed, technical and context-specific information.

A new version of the Guidance Notes on Safer School Construction can be found here.