VISUS School Safety Assessment in Zimbabwe

IHP-WINS
2025-06-29T10:35:19.303012+00:00

Natural disasters frequently damage or destroy school infrastructure, jeopardizing educational opportunities and putting school children's lives in danger. This was experienced by children and staffmembers in Zimbabwe, Chimanimani and Chipinge districts in particular during cyclone Idai which hit eastern Zimbabwe in 2019 and the cyclones that followed. More than 140 schools were affected by the floods and the land slides. The situation at St. Charles Lwanga High School, where 200 children, teachers and support staff were stranded for two days and had to face the cyclone, shows theimportance of safe school infrastructure. To better prepare for such eventualities, UNESCO through the Zimbabwe Idai Recovery Project funded by World Bank and managed by UNOPS collaborated with the University of Udine and the University of Zimbabwe to implement the VISUS (Visual Inspection forDefining the Safety Upgrading Strategies), a multi-hazard school safety assessment methodology thathelp policymakers decide where to focus risk reduction efforts based on available resources andscientific evidence.The VISUS methodology helps assess schools using a holistic, multi-hazard approach that considersfive aspects: site conditions, structural performance, local structural criticalities, non-structuralcomponents, and functional aspects. The methodology has also been improved to consider outbreak ofdisease such as COVID-19. The VISUS methodology was conceived as an effective decision makingtool for planning risk mitigation actions.The project helped mainstream school safety components into the UNOPS’ School RehabilitationProgram and could contribute to the Civil Protection Unit’s School Disaster Education Programme. Theteam’s efforts also assisted in making investments decisions to strengthen the safety of schoolsefficiently and economically.