The Global Alliance for Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience in the Education Sector (GADRRRES), of which GPE, is a member, has long advocated for the importance of comprehensive school safety to build resilient education systems.

The response to this advocacy has been overwhelmingly positive. Governments, organizations and educators see the value of implementing the Comprehensive School Safety Framework, the foundation of GADRRRES’ advocacy.

They agree that strengthening school infrastructure, planning for educational safety and continuity and ensuring children and educators have the skills and knowledge they need to stay safe in emergencies is a needed approach.

What they often lack is money.

Internationally and domestically, there simply isn’t enough money coming into education. Just over half (57%) of countries meet the Incheon Declaration benchmark of spending at least 4% of gross domestic product (GDP) on education.

Less than 1 in 3 funding requests for education in emergencies was met in 2024. And recent aid cuts mean that aid to education is predicted to fall by 24% this year.

Yet not investing in safe and resilient education constitutes a false economy. Every year, disasters cause upwards of US$36 billion of damage to educational infrastructure.

Conversely, there is an estimated $15 return on every $1 invested in disaster risk reduction across sectors. GPE investments alone averted $2.5 billion of losses through climate-resilient infrastructure between 2021-2025 for partner countries. This represents just a small part of the GPE funding portfolio, demonstrating that investing in resilient education as GPE does has compounding benefits.

In response to this clear climate-education financing need, GADRRRES has recently published Financing Implementation of the Comprehensive School Safety Framework: a policy brief that moves beyond what needs to be done to keep schools safe to focus on how to fund it.

5 avenues for financing

The brief covers 5 financing avenues including detailed country case studies for how safe and resilient education not only can, but already has, accessed a given financing pathway.

1. Domestic Budget Allocation
   Domestic budgets are the primary resource for education. Embedding school safety and resilience in national policies and budgets, such as in the case of Costa Rica, can protect investments in education while keeping children safe. Beyond dedicated education budgets, existing emergency funds can be used to channel disaster-management resources into schools. In the Philippines, the Quick Response Fund offers pre-authorized, standby financing for immediate response and early recovery activities following disasters, including for education.
2. Public-Private Partnerships
   Partnerships between the public and private sectors can help to galvanize investment in education that may otherwise be out of reach. In Ecuador, an innovative program promotes private investment in education through tax incentives.
3. International Aid
   While international aid is shrinking, it remains a critical avenue for investment in school safety. In Nigeria, coordination mechanisms have helped to ensure alignment of aid to support more comprehensive implementation of school safety policies. Across 35 countries, the GPE-supported Climate Smart Education Systems Initiative demonstrates how some partners are providing financing specifically for climate resilience in education.
4. Multilateral development banks
   Multilateral development banks have long invested in school safety and resilience, often with a focus on infrastructure. In Pakistan, financing has prompted work on school safety at the national and regional levels. A $47.9-million GPE system transformation grant with the World Bank as grant agent is being used to improve girls’ and boys’ participation at pre-primary and primary levels in Pakistan’s Punjab province. It also aims to strengthen teacher support and improve responsiveness to climate change and emergencies. In the Caribbean, the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency supported the Model Safe School Program that helped to assess public schools, provide training and develop costed action plans to reduce the risks identified in schools across Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
5. Climate Finance
   Despite significant potential to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change and to support learning when disasters strike, education remains underrepresented in climate finance portfolios. The Building the Climate Resilience of Children and Communities through the Education Sector (BRACE) initiative, cofinanced by GPE and the Green Climate Fund, is changing this by funding the scale up of climate-resilient education across Cambodia, South Sudan and Tonga. In Brazil, a strategic advocacy approach is seeking to increase the percentage of climate funds going to the education sector.

New paths for climate-education financing are no longer optional

Building safe and resilient education systems requires financing, far more than is currently available for education alone.

Exploring alternative pathways—be it through usual channels while tapping into other sectors, new forms of funding such as climate finance or harnessing private investment through public-private partnerships—is no longer optional. It is how we accelerate change for children who need it most.

The cost of inaction is too high. Underinvestment in school safety and resilience puts learners' well-being and learning at risk. It also threatens access to something schools represent that goes beyond academics: a protective space, especially for girls, children with disabilities and the ones in the most vulnerable communities.

They need it. They deserve it. And we have the tools to deliver it.

As a 14-year-old girl from Indonesia says, “I ask you to prioritize the well-being of future generations and collaborate to ensure a liveable and sustainable world.”

To heed her call, we must work creatively, across sectors and immediately. It starts today.