From May to November 2022 Fumiyo Kagawa working with David Selby provided technical support to the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) Secretariat on climate change and education, their brief being to develop a conceptual framework for ‘climate-smart education systems’.
GPE is the world’s largest global fund dedicated to providing quality education to children in lower-income countries around the world.
As of April 2023, GPE supports initiatives in 88 countries.
Fumiyo and David’s GPE-commissioned paper – Quality Education with the Planet in Mind: Towards a Climate-Responsive and Nature-Positive Framework for the Education System of Lower Income Countries – brings together diverse communities of practice working at the nexus of climate change, environmental conservation and protection and education with a view to delineating a more systemic and joined-up approach. It proposes climate-responsive and nature-positive education systems that seek to maximize co-benefits between efforts to build climate resilience, to restore environmental integrity and to achieve quality, equitable and inclusive education for all.
The framework consists of the three complementary spheres – climate action and justice, risk reduction and management and nature-based solutions – and is thoroughly infused and informed by the three crosscutting themes of child rights and agency, gender equality and social inclusion, and cultural diversity.
Building on UNICEF-commissioned research on the impact of and response to climate change across education systems in South Asian countries, published as the Heat is On! Series, a climate-responsive and nature-positive education system framework is envisaged as encompassing seven dimensions -– policy and planning; finance; physical infrastructure; curriculum, learning and teaching; school community linkages; coordination and partnerships; data and evidence – all in intersecting relationship. The paper highlights existing approaches, noteworthy examples, current gaps and action points under each of the seven dimensions.
To access the just published GPE-commissioned paper written by Fumiyo Kagawa and David Selby, click here. The contents of this paper significantly inform GPE’s own working paper, Toward Climate-Smart Education Systems: A 7-Dimension Framework for Action. The latter is available both in English and French. To access the document, click here.
Click here for the GPE blog on the launch of these papers, in which SF’s contribution is acknowledged.