Side Meetings Scheduled for 3 April 2009

Delegates will have the opportunity to attend additional meetings on 3 April 2009 following the global consultation. INEE Task Teams and Language Communities are planning to hold business meetings on this date in order to connect with current and new members. More details coming soon about the business meetings.

Consultative Workshop to Develop Guidance Notes for Safer School Construction: Save the Date!!

INEE and the World Bank's Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) are pleased to invite you to participate in the development of Guidance Notes on Safer School Construction through a Consultative Workshop on April 3rd at the Marmara hotel, Istanbul, following the INEE Global Consultation. This meeting of education and construction experts from UN agencies, governments, NGOs and donors will provide a forum to review a draft tool developed to help country policy makers in governments, NGOs, donors, and other stakeholders to both advocate for and integrate disaster risk reduction into the education sector. The results from this workshop will be used to revise the draft Guidance Notes.

The agenda will include an overview of the draft Guidance Notes on Safer School Construction, followed by small group work examining the steps outlined in the draft document to consider when planning and implementing the construction, retrofitting and/or repairing of safer schools. Small groups will also work together to review key design and construction principles to consider when building, retrofitting or repairing school structures for greater resilience to natural disasters. The workshop will culminate with a discussion of next steps on how the Guidance Notes will be disseminated and implemented to ensure coordinated action on the issue of safer school construction around the world.

Prior to the workshop, we will share a more detailed agenda and a copy of the draft Guidance Notes on Safer School Construction. In the meantime, if you are interested in participating, please send an email confirmation to: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). To keep up to date with the progress towards developing the inter-agency Guidance Notes on Safer School Construction, please join the INEE listserv (http://www.ineesite.org/join).