Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Reduction into Millennium Development Goals: A Proposed Framework for Post 2015

Abstract

The year 2015 is referred to as a milestone year because it marks the end of Millennium Development Goals and HFA to build the resilience of nations and communities to disasters. Disaster Risk Reduction should be integrated into sustainable development policies and planning as a strategy of achieving MDGs. However, it is the missing link in the achievement of the MDGs. Measurement associated with the education targets and indicators has been associated with the omission of salient aspects of quality, context and equity. The MDGs do not give any indication on what should be learned and by whom. Neither do they factor in inequality; for example children who drop out of school may be classified as enrolled. The MDG indicators currently do not pick up either inequities of who is and is not enrolled or completing or the perverse incentives associated with large numbers of children being enrolled in school but learning little especially the poorest in remote locations. They do not factor in the pupil-teacher ratio, problems of inequities, socio-economic status, quality, and complexities of gender. Secondly, the indicators of achieving universal primary education focus on ages 15 to 24. This ignores adult illiteracy with its consequences, further deepening inequalities. Further, there is no indicator for inter-sectoral action. In fragile ecological zones where repeated disasters hit, the vulnerability is intensive but does not make any news. In most cases, these disasters go unnoticed. Moreover, the sex and gender differences in vulnerability to the disaster and how they influence quality outcomes in education is often overlooked. Information regarding school performance and factors influencing it among disaster exposed children is very limited in Kenya. No study has investigated other factors that could be contributing to the same considering the environmental, social, political and economic context of the curriculum implementation. This paper fills this gap in knowledge and further contributes to the ongoing debates on Sustainable Development Goals of Post-2015.