DRR and the INEE Minimum Standards

While the INEE Minimum Standards mainly cover preparedness, response and recovery programming and policy, the standards can be and are being used to contribute to risk reduction through areas such as providing essential survival, school safety and life skills information and establishing a safe and secure environment. An interesting example of the implementation of the standards began in Pakistan after the 2005 earthquake. The IASC Education Cluster built upon the INEE Minimum Standards to develop common contextualized standards, and by providing a common framework, stakeholders were able to identify funding gaps and priorities. Perhaps the most significant accomplishment of the INEE Minimum Standards in the earthquake response was to enforce a holistic approach to emergencies and humanitarian aid, promoting educational responses in the early relief effort that incorporated a view to longer-term reconstruction and development of ‘building back better.’ In the Pakistan Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority-UN Early Recovery Plan, the document guiding all government, UN and partner recovery interventions in the earthquake areas (2006-2007), the INEE Minimum Standards are named as the guiding framework for all educational interventions.

Specific INEE Minimum Standards Related to Disaster Risk Reduction

The INEE Minimum Standards contain standards, including a range of indicators and guidance notes for each, that directly relate to disaster risk reduction objectives, particularly the standards on community participation, analysis (initial assessment, monitoring and evaluation), protection and well-being, safe learning environment and using a relevant curriculum:

Community Participation Standard 1: Participation

Emergency-affected community members actively participate in assessing, planning, implementing, monitoring and evaluating the education programme.

Analysis Standard 1: Initial assessment

A timely education assessment of the emergency situation is conducted in a holistic and participatory manner.

Analysis Standard 3: Monitoring

All relevant stakeholders regularly monitor the activities of the education response and the evolving education needs of the affected population.

Analysis Standard 4: Evaluation

There is a systematic and impartial evaluation of the education response in order to improve practice and enhance accountability.

Access and Learning Environment Standard 2: Protection and Well-being

Learning environments are secure, and promote the protection and mental and emotional well-being of learners.

Access and Learning Environment Standard 3: Facilities

Education facilities are conducive to the physical well-being of learners

Teaching and Learning Standard 1: Curricula

Culturally, socially and linguistically relevant curricula are used to provide formal and nonformal education, appropriate to the particular emergency situation.

DRR and Future Revision of the INEE Minimum Standards

In a revision of the INEE Minimum Standards, planned for 2009, risk reduction will be made explicit; in the meantime, INEE is focusing more attention on natural disasters and the risk reduction cycle in its materials and practices through reaching out and linking with the International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (ISDR) and the risk reduction community as well as through using a natural disaster lens to generate case studies and good practices. In particular, INEE is emphasizing the need to:

• Teach about hazards and risk reduction in non-formal learning environments, include disaster risk reduction in the formal curriculum and promote disaster risk reduction through co-curricular activities in schools
• Promote schools as centers for community disaster risk reduction, mobilizing a culture of safety through mobilization and organization and promoting initiatives among children in and out of schools that make them leaders in risk reduction in the community
• Protect schools: prepare and implement school safety plans; taking steps to assess the hazards to schools and to address/strengthen and properly maintain them with a multi-hazard approach; and ensure that new schools are designed, sited, and constructed with hazards in mind

In partnership with the IASC Education Cluster, INEE has developed a Minimum Standards Toolkit, containing the INEE Minimum Standards Handbook, training and promotional materials and clear, practical tools and resources to aid in the contextualisation and implementation of the standards. INEE worked with the disaster risk reduction community to infuse DRR tools and resources into this toolkit in order to mainstream risk reduction into programmes and policies. These toolkits are being widely distributed and utilized in the IASC Education Cluster as well as four INEE Regional Capacity Building workshops (2007-2008), which seek to strengthen regional and national capacity of education and humanitarian workers.

Please Click Here for a list of tools and resources related to DRR, taken from the INEE Toolkit and Resource Database.

For more information, including to request a hard copy of the Minimum Standards Toolkit, contact the INEE Secretariat: network@ineesite.org