Scaling Up Efforts to Improve Safety and Resilience of School Infrastructure in Eastern Europe and Central Asia

Scaling Up Efforts to Improve the Safety and Resilience of School Infrastructure in Eastern Europe and Central Asia leveraged World Bank engagements on safer schools activities in Central Asia to enhance and facilitate the design of policy reforms and intervention plans for making school infrastructure safer and resilient at scale. The engagement sought opportunities to consolidate existing information on school infrastructure, supported the design of national long-term risk reduction and investment strategies, and promoted knowledge-sharing activities through workshops and learning exchanges. It supported all Central Asian economies, with a particular focus on the Kyrgyz Republic and Uzbekistan.

Activities supported by the World Bank

• Building of a national school infrastructure baseline recording the status quo of existing buildings, which could then be analyzed for opportunities for improvement

• Analysis of representative building types using innovative performance-based design techniques. In Uzbekistan, it examined nine representative building types of educational and health facilities as a possible basis for scaling up future government efforts to improve the safety and quality of public infrastructure nationwide

• Design of risk reduction strategies at scale and integration of safety, energy efficiency, and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) facilities into public infrastructure investments that would include solutions to optimize educational infrastructure networks

• Building of key stakeholder capacity to scale up safer schools actions in Central Asia by consolidating school infrastructure information available in the region (on risk exposure, physical condition, structural typologies, and vulnerability). A regional workshop was held to share knowledge and disseminate information on the topic of safer schools, and a comprehensive training program was developed on the topic of seismic risk assessment and retrofitting options for school facilities in Central Asia

Main outputs

• Detailed inventory of typical building types and their seismic vulnerability in Central Asia to facilitate disaster risk analytics

• Regional workshop on safer schools

• Development of a “Learning by Doing” training program on key safer school infrastructure topics, including study tours, working sessions, and field surveys

• Establishment of a thorough methodology to assess educational infrastructure networks based on accessibility and safety 

• Analysis of school infrastructure networks to optimize risk reduction interventions and increase resilience