The earthquakes in April and May of 2015 have had a devastating impact on the facilities and infrastructure in the education sector. Structural Assessment data indicates that in the 11 affected districts outside Kathmandu valley, 67% of classrooms (32,000) are unsafe for use. As a result, a large-scale education in emergencies response is underway, providing temporary classrooms, emergency learning supplies and teacher training on psychosocial support and lifesaving messages to 14 of the most affected districts.
Given the scale of the response, the broad humanitarian needs, Nepal’s unique geography and multihazard context, environmental issues are a priority cross-cutting issue that all sectors need to address.
Why is the environment an important as part of the emergency education response?
A critical component of saving lives and reducing risk after a disaster includes work to ensure that the natural resources that form the basis for human life and livelihoods are restored and responsibly managed for the future. Clean air, water, forests and soil are essential for human health (preventing malnutrition and disease) and well-being (providing the raw materials for economic development and healthy living conditions, as well as reducing the risk of floods and landslides).
Do no harm– As education actors we have the responsibility to ensure that our humanitarian interventions do not damage the environment and indeed actively address environmental sustainability to ensure the communities we work with, and the natural resources which they depend on, are not put at further risk because of the disaster recovery efforts.
Build back safer– Our work should aim to “build back safer” so that we reduce disaster risks and increase the resilience of communities, and addressing environmental considerations is one part of this work.
Ensuring that our emergency response promotes environmental sustainability and resilience will mean communities are less vulnerable to future environmentally-linked risks. Education has a critical role to play in ensuring children, youth and their families are aware of key environment issues and are able to keep themselves and their environments safe and healthy.
It’s the law– Nepali law requires compliance with environmental regulatory frameworks at the national and local levels as described below. At the international level, the Sphere Handbook, the Code of Conduct for The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and NGOs in Disaster Relief, and the Hyogo Framework for Action address the need to prevent over-exploitation, pollution, and degradation of the environment and encourage sustainable use and management of ecosystems. (links)
It’s good practice– Environment considerations should be factored into all parts of the programme cycle – from assessments and project design through to implementation, and monitoring and evaluation. Cost benefit analysis often shows that environmentally friendly building design is also cheaper and more sustainable. We must also consider environmental issues throughout our response and look for opportunities to influence the reconstruction process from an environmental perspective as we move between immediate relief through to longer-term recovery.