Inclusive Comprehensive School Safety: Strengthening Resilience for Children and Youth in all hazards

The global education crisis is worsening, and without preparedness and resilience, millions of children's futures are at risk.

In 2024 alone, 242 million children experienced school disruptions due to extreme climate events. Right now, 234 million school-aged children in crises urgently need support to access quality education. As we look ahead, pandemics, technological crises, conflict, and other hazards will continue to threaten the right to education. Millions of children’s futures are in peril. 
But while crises are sadly inevitable, the adverse impacts on children’s learning are not. Experience and expertise gathered from decades of work in school safety and resilience have culminated in a framework for a different future: the Comprehensive School Safety Framework for Child Rights and Resilience in the Education Sector 2022-2030 (CSSF).

This hybrid side event will advance the adoption and implementation of this critical Framework by showcasing real world data, impact, and evidence from across the globe. Grounded in a hopeful future, the session will cover the latest global statistics on school safety policies and highlight best practice. Attendees will not only hear about political commitments to school safety, but also learn from practical, impactful, and replicable examples of comprehensive school safety in action across diverse contexts, including fragile and crisis-affected countries. 
The session will end with a call to action, emphasising the importance of comprehensive school safety for the advancement of the Sendai Framework. Voices from children, youth, and education ministers will promote coordinated efforts for resilience in the education sector.

The causes of disasters are diverse, but the outcome is the same: a risk of disruption to children’s right to learn. We need urgent action from all actors to endorse and implement the Comprehensive School Safety Framework. The clock is ticking. What steps will you take today to support the implementation of CSSF in your community?  

Session objectives

This session aims to advance the adoption of the Comprehensive School Safety Framework (CSSF) by showcasing global progress in school safety and resilience, offering clear case studies and resources to galvanize implementation. Concretely, the session aims to:

• Increase commitment to implementing the CSSF;
• Facilitate and catalyse greater collaboration on school safety across sectors, actors, and generations;
• Deliver actionable recommendations for integrating CSSF into policies and budgets; and
• Provide a platform to integrate and respond to the education expertise of children and young people; and
• Provide initial insights of how the CSSF aligns with other safe schools and education in emergencies frameworks and tools.

The session will be fully hybrid and we encourage remote attendance to maximise impact.

Speakers

• Save the Children
• UNICEF
• UNESCO
• Plan International
• International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
• Interagency Network for Education in Emergencies
• Geneva Global Hub