Fumiyo Kagawa has completed a November 2018 to July 2019 consultancy for UNICEF Pacific to support the implementation design of its school-based disaster risk reduction (DRR) and resilience project in four countries in the Pacific region, i.e. Fiji, the Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu.
In line with one of the UNICEF Pacific’s Programme intended outputs for 2018 to 2022 (‘the education system at all levels has the capacity to build resilience and prepare children and school communities to respond to emergencies and disasters’), the overall aims of this consultancy were twofold: first, to support Ministries of Education in the development of training resources for gender-responsive and inclusive school-based preparedness and planning with community involvement and, second, to build the capacity of national, sub-national and local authorities to manage, support and sustain school-based DRR and resiliency.
More specific objectives were threefold:
- To conduct a desk review and national, sub-national and school/community-level key stakeholder consultations on existing DRR policies, plans, activities, guidance and the contents and design of a school-based DRR and resilience handbook and training guide
- To develop a contextualized, gender-responsive and inclusive practical school-based DRR and resilience handbook and training guide for each country, together with monitoring tools to be used at school, sub-national and national level
- To develop and conduct national and sub-national training of trainers in each country to build the capacity of Ministry of Education Officers and sub-national Education Officers to train teachers and school committees on school-based DRR and Resilience planning
Fumiyo first conducted a desk-based review of relevant literature, followed by field-based stakeholder consultation meetings and information gathering in November and December 2018. The consultation meetings involved national, sub-national and school/community-level key stakeholders consisting of total 215 adults and 152 students. Further to the field-based consultation and continuous desk-based literature review, she submitted an Inception Report and also drafted a gender-responsive, inclusivity-focused and practical school DRR handbook and training guide for each country. Feedback comments from stakeholder review meetings in each country were subsequently incorporated into the draft materials.
In April and May 2019, Fumiyo paid a second visit to the Pacific region to conduct a 3-day national level training of trainers (ToT) and to offer close support to 2-day sub-national level trainings in Fiji, the Solomon Islands and Tonga. Subesquent to a second stakeholder review meeting in each country, the materials were further revised and submitted to UNICEF.
The consultancy ended with the submission of a final consultancy report to UNICEF on 7 July 2019.