Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Management into El Salvador’s Education Sector

El Salvador is exposed to a variety of natural hazards and is located in one of the most seismically active regions in the world. The annual average loss from earthquakes is nearly $176 million or 0.7% of gross domestic product. Other major hazards include floods, landslides, tropical storms, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and droughts––particularly in El Niño seasons.

In this context, the World Bank is supporting the government of El Salvador in formulating the country’s first national seismic risk mitigation plan for public school infrastructure. The grant to do so has been funded by the Japan-World Bank Program for Mainstreaming DRM in Developing Countries (Japan Program) and implemented by the Global Program for Safer Schools (GPSS) managed by the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR).

To further support this plan, on May 19, 2022, a virtual knowledge exchange facilitated by the Japan Program was held, where a Japanese engineering firm met with El Salvador’s Ministry of Education and the GPSS team to share recommendations on strengthening the resilience of school infrastructure. These recommendations came from lessons learned on a Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) project where the firm collaborated with El Salvador’s government agencies to integrate and promote the risk prevention and mitigation for public infrastructures. During the virtual exchange, government officials from education, public works, transportation, housing, urban development, and climate change adaptation were able to exchange views and agreed to strengthen collaboration in order to better adapt schools to a changing climate and increasing disaster risks.

Leveraging Japan’s experiences and lessons learned which are compiled in the publication “Making Schools Resilient at Scale: the Case of Japan”, and the expertise of the GPSS team, the government of El Salvador was able to:

(i) establish a baseline of 5,000 public school facilities with updated basic information on school infrastructure and structural characteristics for a representative sample of school building types;

(ii) create an App tool made available to the team at the Ministry of Education so that they can collect and store data from school inspections;

(iii) deliver a diagnostic report of construction environment and management of school infrastructure;

(iv) perform seismic risk assessments of public school portfolio, including estimates of potential damage and economic losses as a result of earthquakes;

(v) and create a proposal for a national seismic risk mitigation program for public school infrastructure.

Furthermore, a regional forum took place at the beginning of June bringing together high-level government representatives and other stakeholders from various countries in Central America to share results of this project and discuss opportunities to scale up investments on school infrastructure resilience. Outcomes from this grant have been shared with other Ministries of Education in Central America.

For Central America, three technical notes funded by the Japan Program, were created to provide the analytical basis for the design of school infrastructure strategies, policies, and investments across the region. The technical notes aim at providing evidence based practical guideline that can be used by the Ministries of Education’s teams to improve the effectiveness their school infrastructure investments with an emphasis on resilience to natural events. These notes were heavily informed by design principles adopted by architects in Japan, such as the “Quality Investment Infrastructure Framework” supported by the government of Japan as well as the “Design Principles” lecture given by architect Tezuka at the Understanding Risk 2020 Forum have been instrumental in development of these documents, for example by highlighting the effectiveness of evidence based practical guidance.

These technical assistances are also bringing in more development financing. A $500 million historic investment to support El Salvador’s “My New School” program – the largest investment in school infrastructure to date – is being supported by the World Bank Group, together with the Inter-American Development Bank, and Central American Bank for Economic Integration. The program will implement a set of public reforms to improve the quality of the physical learning environments in the country. The World Bank Group will support the construction and rehabilitation of 500 public schools and the maintenance of 1500 public schools. This school infrastructure investment is using GPSS’ expertise to inform the prioritization of investments by making use of a probabilistic seismic risk assessment conducted by GPSS technical assistance on the entire portfolio of public school facilities; and to promote school designs that are learning oriented and climate resilient, incorporating innovative architectural design methodologies.