Protecting Children’s Learning Futures
Quantifying climate-related loss and damage in education across Eastern and Southern Africa
Highlights
Climate change is intensifying the education crisis across Eastern and Southern Africa, where learning poverty is already widespread and nine out of ten children aged 10 are unable to read for comprehension. Increasingly frequent and severe climate shocks – including floods, droughts, heatwaves and cyclones – are disrupting schooling, damaging learning environments, and undermining education systems’ ability to respond and recover.
This UNICEF and Dalberg report presents the first regional estimates of the economic and non-economic loss and damage caused by climate change to education systems. Between 2005 and 2024, climate-related disruptions affected an estimated 130 million children, contributing to US$1.3 billion in direct damage to education systems and up to US$140 billion in projected lifetime income losses. Without urgent action, these impacts are expected to rise significantly, with hundreds of millions more children at risk of learning disruption by 2050.
The findings highlight the urgent need to strengthen climate-resilient education systems and scale up financing to address loss and damage. Investing in resilience not only protects children’s right to learn, but also safeguards future human development and economic growth across the region.
