IEFG BIG Series: Education x Climate = Philanthropy²

How can education and climate funders collaborate more strategically, sharing insights, evidence, and approaches, to deepen understanding and strengthen the critical connections between climate change and education?

In this episode of the BIG Series, we bring together funders from both sectors who are actively engaging at the nexus of climate and education, they will share with you concrete examples of successful collaboration. The discussion will explore how aligned funding strategies and shared learning can catalyze more effective, long-term collaboration, ultimately advancing solutions that respond to both climate and education challenges in an integrated way.

Sarah Beardmore, Strategic Partnerships and Capabilities Team Lead, Global Partnership For Education (GPE). Sarah is dedicated to improving children's education and well-being through her role at the Global Partnership for Education, where she leads the Strategic Partnerships and Capabilities team. With over 20 years of international experience, she collaborates on strategies to address challenges like climate change and school nutrition. Sarah is at the forefront of GPE's Climate Smart Education Systems work, driving technical assistance and climate finance initiatives to support the most climate-vulnerable regions. 

Katrin Harvey, Secretary General, the Foundations Platform F20. Katrin is the Secretary General of the Foundations Platform F20. She previously served as Chief Operations Officer at the Ban Ki-moon Centre for Global Citizens, working with global leaders and youth to advance the SDGs and the Paris Climate Agreement. With over 15 years of experience, she has led sustainability and climate action projects across Europe, Africa, and Asia in collaboration with international partners. 

Bapon Fakhruddin, PhD, Water Sector Lead, Green Climate Fund. Dr. Fakhruddin is a leading expert on climate resilience. He has over 23 years of experience advising governments and organizations around the world on disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. As a hydrometeorologist, his specialty is in climate risk assessment, early warning systems, community resilience, and water security. He is currently leading the Water Sector at the Green Climate Fund. He oversees climate investments in vulnerable countries around the world to support water security and early warning project origination. 

Elizabeth Maina, Regional Programmes Advisor, Climate Resilience, The Agha Khan Foundation. As the Regional Climate Resilience Advisor at Aga Khan Foundation East Africa, Elizabeth leads the development of robust climate resilience portfolios across Kenya, Tanzania, and  Uganda. She leverages biodiversity and ecosystem services to enhance community resilience to climate change.

Rupert Corbishley, Education Advisor, Africa, The Aga Khan Foundation.  Rupert, a teacher by profession, started with AKF in 2012 working in Tanzania and provides technical and strategic leadership and support for the Education Improvement Programme and ECD teams across East Africa. 

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Transcript

Yasmein: Welcome back to the  big series on education philanthropy and the climate crisis. I'm Yasmein from IEFG, and in this episode we are exploring partnerships between education and climate Philanthropy. In earlier episodes, our speakers highlighted the need for intentionality in funding climate education. As we face an urgent climate crisis, it's important to also consider the risks of doing too little or not acting fast enough. Education funders need to understand how the climate crisis relates to their work. How can they work together with climate funders and share knowledge and the strategies to uncover and strengthen the links between climate change and education? Today we have the privilege of being joined by an outstanding line up of speakers from education and climate funders each bringing valuable insights.

Today we are joined by Sarah Beardmore from Global Partnership for Education. 

Sarah: Hi Yasmine. Thanks for having me. 

Yasmien: Bapon Fakhruddin from Green Climate Fund . 

Bapon: Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. 

Yasmien: Katrin Harvey from Foundations 20

Katrin: Hello. Thank you for having me. 

Yasmien: Elizabeth Maina  from Aga Khan FoundationHi, Elizabeth

Elizabeth:  Hi Yasmein. Glad to be here and looking forward to the discussions. 

Yasmein: And finally we haveRupert Corbishley from Aga Khan Foundation

Hi Rubert.

Rubert: Hi Yasmein. Hi everybody. Looking forward to today and thanks for having us. 

Yasmein: Welcome to the podcast. It's great to have you all in today's episode. So whether you are working in education or climate funders have developed valuable knowledge and trusted partnerships that can serve at powerful levers for a change as the urgency of the climate crisis grows. So too, does the need to break down silos and align across sectors. Advancing the climate and education priorities in a coordinated way requires Intentional strategic collaboration. So this episode's guests were invited because they are already working at the intersections of climate and education, either within their own foundations or through cross-sectoral partnerships. So would you tell us how these cross sector relationships and collaborations came about? What existing examples of successful collaboration are there that can be built upon or scaled to inspire broader actions. Sarah, Do you wish to start. 

Sarah: So thanks, Yasmein for the question. When we talk about climate change, we often focus on things like carbon emissions or energy or infrastructure, but the thing is that we're facing deeply interconnected crises.You can't tackle climate change without also addressing educational poverty. And the smartest solutions are the ones that deliver for both. And so that's why cross sector investments, such as what we're doing with the Green Climate Fund, are absolutely critical that you have $1 that's working twice as hard boosting both learning outcomes and building climate resilience at the same time. So we see our partnership with the Green Climate Fund really as a win-win solution. So together we're starting with a co-finance program in the education sector for climate adaptation. We're starting in Cambodia, South Sudan, and Tonga. And then through this partnership that we've developed together with Save the Children, we're working to make schools safer and more resilient, ensuring that learning is climate smart, and also helping communities more broadly adapt to the threats they're facing with support from their local school system. So the way it works really is that GPE as a global partnership for education, we can fund the core education needs. So building schools, training teachers, providing textbooks, but climate funds can actually help make those investments future proof. So think about schools that can handle extreme heat or flooding, wash facilities that can still function during droughts, equipping teachers with emergency plans. So learning doesn't stop when disaster strikes. These are really efforts that can make every dollar count twice because we're working together. And I think education is really a powerful means of interrupting the extreme asymmetries of climate impacts, right? We know that the most vulnerable communities are the poorest and the hardest hit by climate change, and it's directly inversely proportional to their responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions. So, you know, the education sector represents the largest public workforce, the biggest layout of public sector facilities. And the education system is spread across nearly every region of every country with a school in every community. So they're massive networks, and they could reach every child down to the last mile. So we need to actually capitalize on the potentially very powerful role that education can play in addressing climate vulnerability. You know, on the other hand, we're barely tapping into the potential to address climate change. Just 13 million of international climate finance went into education. In 2022. So that's like one out of every a hundred thousand dollars of climate finance. So this is just a massive gap and a missed opportunity. So to address this with the Green Climate Fund and Save the Children, we are really working to build the capacity of the global system for climate and education for investment. Part of our collaboration is establishing a climate and education co-finance platform that can bring education and climate funders together to align priorities, to build a pipeline of projects that can deliver on both fronts. And also we're looking at building the capacity of organizations to deliver these programs. So guidance for countries to integrate education into their nationally determined contributions, their climate commitments, embedding education experts in the national adaptation plan, global network to reinforce government capacity, providing guidance to the climate funds around what solid education programs could look like.

Bapon: Thanks Sarah for joining from GPE. As you maybe know that from the Green Climate Fund point of view, we'd like to see a more programmatic and systemic approach to making sure that actually how we create a paradigm shift in climate action for our climate resilience. And if you really wants to conduct such kind of things, you cannot actually think about the silos any sector because everything is interconnected and everything has a relationship, so we cannot actually forget one to add it. And in that particular aspect, it was a pleasure for us actually to work together with the GPE, with the Save the Children, and as well as other donor to packaging a more inclusive, integrated, and more systemic education project. And I think this is a fast education project. We are programming together with the GPE as well as Save the Children at that scale, and also creating that kind of, you know. Different regional focus to bringing off all sort of aspect, looking at what it could be happening for the island perspectives, what could be happening for a conflict and fragile economy and what could be happening for the vulnerable communities. So we selected actually this kind of sampling to understand better how this kind of approach could work together, but at the same times how that could be scaling up for greater goods. 

Sarah: Thanks Bapon. And really I think we're at the beginning of a journey to make sure that we're getting real lasting climate solutions by mobilizing the human potential to solve the climate crisis. We're really happy to beginning and and launching this new collaboration with GCF, and we invite other funders to come on this journey with us. 

Katrin: I was taking lots of notes when Sarah was speaking. So because a lot of this resonates to our work at F20, F 20 is not specifically our foundation itself. We are a network of foundations. So we are a global platform. We see ourselves as an enabler and as a bridge builder between the different actors, between philanthropies, it a society, business, government. The work is always corralling around what is happening in the G 20 and specifically also what is happening with each year's G 20 presidency. So this year in that case in South Africa. So while we are using the voice of philanthropy towards the governments who are making the decision in G20 to hopefully build on systemic change and creating an environment that does help us in solving these poly crises and focusing and implementation of the sustainable development calls and the Paris Climate Agreements, which are basically our frameworks of reference. We also feed this back to our funders, foundations to share the kind of conversations, what are happening on in G 20. Where can foundations come in and help? Where do foundations already have solutions? And really discussing how can we really move this forward in a space where we're, especially in the multilateral system, there are issues that we don't really need right now. We should be having a system that is working, but it's not. We see ourselves almost like a global learning platform, even towards the foundations and it's so great to see and be here in this connection where we are looking at the connection between education and climate because it is in a sense, a systemic change that we need and it is very, very hard. I know we should be coming here and talking about how can we do this and what are the solutions. There are so many things and players that in little nuts and bolts that we have to be aware of when we are trying to overcome the silo thinking. It's not something that just came up in the last 10 years that we are against a system that has been around for a long time where people have been only thinking about in their educational space and everybody's been only speaking and then there's an agenda space and you're thinking in your climate space and we've. Finally is starting to realize and trying to break this open that we see everything is interconnected. So there's definitely a lot of our work where we are trying to show some of this connection. We have our regular newsletters and magazine stories, our social media campaigns where we're trying to integrate things that could help as levers such as education when it comes to climate action. Although I have to also put in a little word of warning that F20 is coming from G 20. There's a lot of finance conversation going on. So a lot of like international financial architecture reform, how to work with the multilateral development banks, and so these kinds of things. Obviously a little bit bit detached from the actual on the ground work. We have had specific education conversations at our Climate Solutions forum, which is our big conference every year where you're bringing together our members and networks and other partners in the countries. So we've have started bridging that gap a little bit, but I have to say that there is still a lot of work that we need to do, and it's important for us to build these kinds of networks and to learn from each other exactly. The kinds of stories that Sarah has been sharing just now of how has this already been working, what are the learnings from this, because I'm sure there is not just everything is great and happy and it's all worked in the first try. So I'm pretty sure there are things like, please avoid try this. We've done it, it didn't work. Let's go somewhere else. That's basically where we are coming from. You know, I've heard Sarah say things like, only 13 million of climate finance went into education. And then of course I hear tons of alarm bells going like, no, no, no, but climate finance has to stick with climate finance because we don't even have enough for this. Don't try to put it into another pot. But I'm hearing the same stories from our feminist funds and from our women's led events, like in the gender space. It's like, don't divert funding from gender to climate. It's not necessarily moving money around, but like Sarah said, making $1 count for more than $1. And I think that's the crux that we're trying to solve and where we're trying to get to. 

Yasmien: Thank you so much, Katherine. It's very interesting that we see climate funders now start, you know, exploring this connection between climate and indication, seeing how we can bring this conversation and our forums and our events, and how we can possibly bridge this gap we have today. We also have Agha Khan Foundation who actually have a leading example in working in this intersection between education and climate. We have Rubert from Climate Education portfolio. We have Elizabeth from Climate Portfolio. So I think we can hear from them about how they are collaborating together across portfolios and also with external funders, education funders, and the climate funders to address these intersections between education and the climate.

Elizabeth: Thank you Yasmien for this question. So at Agha Khan Foundation, I lead the climate resilience work across East Africa. We are working in regenerative agriculture, tree growing, agroforestry, just a lot of work mangroves, a lot of work within the climate space. And I think for us, one of the biggest lessons that has come across is that there's successful collaboration that has to happen between the education team, the climate team. It's hinged on being very intentional. From the design that is from the start to be able to move forward if you're able to co-design, for example, through one of the projects that we had called the Grow Initiative, which is about establishing micro forests, which are small dance forest within schools. And this has enabled us to work very closely, the climate team, the education team, and we've been able to establish hundreds of these micro forests within schools. So from a climate perspective, we know that this forest will be able to help reduce temperatures within schools, increase biodiversity and even improve students' concentration. Makes it fun. But then. Where does the education team come in and provide this technical awareness? The education team needs to figure out now this is what the climate team has given us as an idea for solution. How does this now fit in into the pedagogy part of the education part? So we ensure that everybody's able to share their proposition and able to have value in what we are doing. So I think this is one of the things that we've learned internally to be able to make an impact and be able to have the teams working together. But I think also externally is to work with existing systems or exist. Sustain organizations that are already doing the work so that it's not duplicating, it's not starting over. And one of this has happened in central Kenya where we've worked with about 40 plus schools to be able to do the same and establish the micro forests and have them as learning tools for the schools. But the need for co-design is very, very, very, very important to be able to make this happen. So I think for climate funders as climate funders, what we need to work through, or even as education funders and vice versa. I think some of the key enablers to able to do this is to ensure that we have flexible funding that is going to be able to allow for adaptive learning. And then I also think there's a need to be able to have community co-creation so that we ensure that all the local needs are rooted within the community. And then finally, I think that last and third thing that we need to ensure is that. We track our outcomes. I think like Katrin and Sarah have said there before, if, for example, you look at climate, I'm saying I'm working independently as climate, and the other person is saying, oh, we are gender. Oh, we are education. But when it comes to monitoring, how do we bring all this together? Not working in silos like Katrin has said, we need to figure out how we can track our outcomes across each of the thematic areas and to see how they correlate. Because how is education affected in climate? How, how do we bring, monitoring and measurements that are shared? Because this is one of the challenges that we have where we have just one single sector logic in which we operate. So I think it's important for us to see how does education come in? How does climate come in? Even beyond climate, how do we ensure that these silos stop existing, to ensure that we are very intentional about it, that we collaborate and we need to know that this was not going to happen by default. We need to be very, very, very committed in doing it. So let's meet with the educators where they are. Let me not come here as a climate person and say, oh, the educators need to know this climate is happening. But also as climate people, that the educators meet us at a point of, we don't understand what pedagogy means. We don't know how to make this happen. How can we simplify these languages so that when I say GHGs, what am I speaking to? You need to simplify the language so that it's understandable, so that you can be able to also improve our collaborative infrastructure. So I think we need to know that education is not just a delivery channel, it's a driver for climate transformation. And if we can see it that way, then I think we'll be able to move, move forward with this.

Rubert:  Yeah. Thanks. Thanks, Liz. Yeah, so I mean, as Elizabeth said, you know, working very much on the climate side of things, you know, I work on the other side of the coin for the foundation. I'm working as an education advisor Just love listening to what everybody's saying, and it really, really resonates. I think some of the learnings that we've had around this is really find your allies is the first one. Cross sector programming is a necessity across many sectors, right? People and children do not just need health. They do not just need learning and education. They don't just need one of our sector silos. And so it's a critical aspect. And with the climate crisis, this is becoming something that needs to be addressed across all sectors, but really finding your allies. So from my side, I'm a geography teacher, and so I've always thought about the climate, always thought about global warming. And so for Liz. I hope I was sort of once somebody, she looked towards and thought, Roo somebody who I can potentially speak to. And same crossing the aisle in the other direction. I think Liz and Kartin and our other climate colleagues, you know, were allies and recognize the power of schools and the power of education to meet our collective objectives around our climate and our holistic learning. I think something else that this sort of alluded to is the mindset. You know, we need to be humble and open-minded. We need to recognize where our expertise finish and other people's expertise starts, where they cross over or et cetera, et cetera. And I think when you looking at cross sector collaboration is really having a lot of trust and it being open-minded. It is only through that that I think you reach what Sarah was talking about is making every single dollar work twice as hard, which is so critical with the the amount of money that's been removed from social development globally and recognizing that it's not a zero sum gain. That a dollar not going to a gender portfolio cannot achieve gender and education outcomes. That a a dollar not going into climate is not gonna achieve education and climate outcomes together. I think that's really important. Liz, really, she really talked about the grow, right? Which is micro forest, right? This is the value proposition. It was really, really clear to us. They demystified the language. They made it simple to understand for us, it's not just tree planting, it's a much better system of tree planting. So we could recognize the value proposition of what they were bringing to us. And this is where I think it comes to a challenge to the education community. Sarah was talking about demonstrating the power of education to address the climate crisis. And she's like, but we have to prove that. We have to demonstrate. We can't expect just our climate colleagues to do this. So I think it's a call to action for our us as educators. My final one is also. We have to be kind to ourselves a little bit as well. We are not gonna get it perfect first time. We're not going to get the perfect solution every single time. And I think just being kind to ourselves, and I think Liz spoke with making sure the co-creation and all the rest of it is in there. That ability to pilot, to test, to validate is explicit in the way in which the financing is structured and, and the programs are designed so that we can have that ability to be kind to ourselves and recognize that in areas of new collaboration, we are able to test, learn, and validate what works for accelerating climate action, but also accelerates the way in which climate and education come together to support holistic learning outcomes for all children.

Yasmien: Thank you. Thank you so much, rubert So that Bapon from your opinion and drawing on your work at Green Climate Fund, how can founders adopt a broader perspective on their social impact grant making by integrating a climate lens into their giving strategies? You know, what recommended tools, frameworks, or approaches are they lacking right now to support this shift?

Bapon: GCF provided quite catalytic financing, as we always say, which could create a quite enabling environment for creating a market opportunity, but also sustaining any program for a long-term sustainability aspect. So we provide an enabling ecosystems where other finances could come to de-risk the market or see actually how a differential instrument could be utilized for making those economically viable as well as efficiency, which means actually we could come up with a highly concessionality, or we call like a fit for purpose financing. What does it mean? You may be agree with me that a grant-based financing will not sustain project quite often and you may saw many of those examples that are happened in the past. We provide a project and the project ends, everything actually ends there. Neither the program sustain nor the capacity retain, which means that actually we need to be actually doing things a little bit differently. And when you're talking about climate change impact, so that means things are actually quite emerging and we need to be actually a little bit think out of the box from a traditional approach to a more new innovative solution. And as well as linking to the other sector horizontally as well as vertically. In that particular spectrum, GCF could bring up with a highly concessional instrument, which is like a highly concessional loan, equity guarantor, fast loss, whatever. Actually a country or our entity thinks that actually could be utilized, create the market, but also how to attract the private sector or other financier so that actually they can see a market actually de-risk or whatever the element that they're actually looking for De-risking the market, we could actually provide those kind of solution because we are not fixed with any area, so our financing is quite flexible and. It could actually create those kind of enabling environment for paradigm shift. 

Yasmein: Thank you so much Bapon, I think funders often support what's familiar, for example, projects with a strong track record or those within trusted networks. And over time this tendency can lead to risk aversion, making it more challenging for new or less familiar ideas to receive the support they need, even when they hold significant potential. And this actually raises a key question. What are the key barriers that hinder effective collaboration between education and the climate funders? Why is it essential for both climate and education funders to look beyond the current boundaries and their strategies to each other's sectors? So I think maybe we can get back to Katrin about this from your expertise. Katrin , what are the challenges that you have witnessed? 

Katrin: Thank you, Yasmein, and learning from our network and from the members and partners that we have in our platform some of this has already come up in the conversation just now. We're starting at the point where we have different measurements. We are calling success different things in these different spaces. So between education and climate, there is also, I think Sarah also mentioned is on the one hand we're counting GHGs emission reductions, and on the other hand, we're counting how many kids pass a certain test, and I'm really not in the education space, so I'm just Ball parking this year. So I think there's one thing that already came up. Then the second thing that's also come up is like the silo question. I don't wanna beat a dead horse, but this is just really difficult to overcome and see where even within organizations that do both, like, uh, Roo and Elizabeth, they obviously worked in the evolution, but some of them don't talk to each other and it's not so uncommon, and it's not anybody to blame because of course everybody has their own KPIs and needs to deliver on their annual goals. I think also the language that Roo I think also mentioned in terms of what are we talking about? I have no understanding of education programs. I've, I've worked a little bit. In my previous life on some global citizenship education and some green skills building. But that's really very tangential and I feel like I have no authority whatsoever to speak about education. So I think that kind of language barrier that we have should start, maybe come across because it can feel very daunting on my end of the story feels daunting. And I can just imagine if you are in education and you work on a curriculum change or you wanna, uh, you know, increase girls and in school, and then all of a sudden here I come and talk to you about GHG emissions and decarbonization and just transitions and all of those things, it makes you feel like, I don't know what this is about and I don't know how to solve this problem. And it's scary. And so that's one of the things we should try to really open up the space. And so it's not so scary in the end, like Roo said. We all want the same thing. We want future generations to be able to live on a planet that is livable and that is nice, and that people feel healthy and safe to work in and live in. So I think where we're trying to get to is the same place. We just need to kind of overcome this feeling of, I don't feel like I know how, what to do, and it's scary. And then of course, the whole storytelling behind where are we, what is, what are we trying to achieve, where are we? We're talking climate is on a global scale. We are talking temperature rises, depletion of corals, and we're talking like. Sea level rises and glacier melting and stopping the El Nino on an educational space. We're talking, getting kids into schools, kept keeping them, is getting them ready for life skills that they need in the 21st century and a huge workforce coming, young generations coming up that have very limited job perspectives. So that's really hard one and, and I think we should try to start with the small steps and the small wings that we can do. And some of our members have already done this, so it's really, we're starting to look at how can we integrate climate literacy in school. Like the micro forest being, we have a similar partner organization called Plant for the Planet who've done this. They do a full on climate literacy training in schools that turns out little climate activists in school settings, but including the tree planting conversation and they are planting trees in their school yards to give them like this hands-on feeling of what's actually happening and how can I make a difference. And if we're looking at the workforce conversation, like the whole idea around first century skills, green jobs, these kinds of things are definitely a very clear overlap and should be theoretically easy to bridge if we go in with open ears and then try to really speak the others language in a sense and share some of our learnings across, across this. And then just one data point, I mean, some of the climate movements came out of a school setting, one of the strongest that we've seen in the last year, the Fridays for future movement. So I guess they kind of refused education for climate, but in a sense it came out of a school setting. There is this power in the masses and I loved how Sarah put it as I mobilizing human potential of the climate crisis. This is exactly it. We can talk our mouths dry and to governments and politicians about you have to do something about climate change. They are reliant on their citizens. They do what their constituencies do. So if the constituency is educated and understands and demands climate action, that's when we're starting to get more traction in this space.

Yasmien: Thank you so much, Katrin. I think an important point you have mentioned is this maybe the lack of understanding of each other's sectors. One of the key issues we don't see often, collaboration or, you know, learning opportunities. How can they learn from each other? How can they understand more about this intersection and about each other sectors? Maybe Elizabeth could share with us more about this drawing on the work of Agh Khan foundation, how such deeper understanding and effective management of the intersection between climate change and other societal objectives, such as education, for example, can contribute to building a stronger foundation for meaningful and sustained climate action.

Elizabeth: Thank you. Thank you so much, Yasmein. This is a very important question to discuss and I think there's one thing that has stood out to now is isolation. Isolation, isolation. We were working very, very differently, so I think we are very clear that climate cannot succeed in isolation. If you think about it, even if you think beyond education and other things, it cuts across. So within the social systems, we need to figure out how to make it operate and to make it success. And I like what Catherine has said and Sarah, about schools being one of the sources of the biggest climate movements that we've seen. So it's one of the ways in which we can ensure that we are having a continuity and ensuring that education is building a stronger foundation for climate, is to ensure that from design, from decision making, from intentionality. Even as we work through this, and as katrin said, some of these departments don't even speak to each other, but I think Roo and I were just speaking the other day and saying, why not make it a KPI? So it means if Catherine is supposed to deliver WXYZ on climate. Then the intersection with other thematic areas needs to be a KPI. So this means that I'm a climate person, but I'm required to interact with the other thematic areas and at the end of the quarter, report on what I've done with the other thematic areas, or learn to be able to make it a performance kind of way. Because if that's the way to go to ensure that you are working together, then this could make it possible. Then I think also it's the framing, which disconnects us, we need to figure out how to build this. Because I think even for us as a Ghan foundation, ed, he's a geography teacher, and it was that who's my ally? Because when I say education, not everybody will like education. When I say climate, oh, it's like this thing. It's the whole conversation that's going on right now, but if you identify someone who is your ally and is in agreement to what climate is and the impacts it's having on school, going children, parents will have to take their kids to school. If you look at the impacts of climate, I think it's because we use very difficult language or difficult words, but if you think about it, who are affected by climate, it's the students going to school. They don't have meals because of climate. They don't have access to schools because of climate. We've seen infrastructure in schools and Sarah has talked about how so much investment goes into infrastructure and how the importance of climate to make sure that these infrastructure is sustainable and therefore a longer time is to ensure that all these are affecting mostly kids. I think we need to figure out how to address this barrier. Isolation. And I think whether we are funders, whether we are implementers, it's to figure, I would say we need to unlock the potential means of what's working. How can we, domestic climate science, both for the educators, both for the learners, for the community. 'cause I think school is a community, and I was happy to hear, I think it was Sarah who was talking about how there is already building conversations on climate and education and we need to figure out how we can be able to invest in joint planning and shared platforms. What kind of platforms already exist so that we're not building new platforms and how can we use these platforms to ensure that we addressing these gaps, but then at least take one step forward and ensure that when we talk about education, when we might think we want to start with big schools. Starts from ECD, how do we bring climate into play? How do we bring it to primary schools? How do we bring it to T as courses that when people are leaving tertiary schools or universities, climate is already a current conversation being discussed. Because I think the impact of climate to education is being felt in schools, is being felt in universities, and we are seeing all these impacts happening. So I think it's not just about what I do as a climate person, it's not about what happens in education in terms of just education, in terms of class and pedagogy. I'm not also an expert in education, but I think the more you interact, the more you get to learn what's happening in these spaces. So we need to unlock these potential opportunities. We need to look at what is existing and how we can use it to be able to make this happen. And I think for us it was Grow initiative is what we've developed as a value proposition. How does this now fit into schools? Because we could say, for example, agro forest. Which is treason farms. That would not work for schools, but that will work for farmers very well, very accurately. But I can't take a micro forest and take it to a farmer since I already have the value proposition. Then I'll take it to the school, and this could even go into nutrition in schools, could be fruit, micro forest, where the students come and they executed to come to school because I'll find some fruits. So it's to think about what is in climate that can work for schools and bring this together. Because if you begin early and if you build consistently, we are going to raise a generation that is not just climate aware. But he is also climate resilient, and I think we can be able to find a fun and educational way to do it, both from class and beyond class. Yeah, I think this is how we'll be able to do it.

Yasmien: Thank you. Thank you so much, Elizabeth. I think addressing this often overlooked intersection between climate change and education, taking steps to addressing this can lead funders to the next step. In Agha Khan example, for example, they have developed a dedicated climate education portfolio when they started addressing this intersection between education and the climate. So maybe you can get back to Roo and hear from him how the development of such a dedicated climate education portfolio serve as a strategic approach to generate meaningful core benefits, you know, between education and climate.

Rubert: Yeah, thanks. I think just a couple of things before I start on that. I think, you know, I wanna go to Sarah's point around this asymmetric impact. It is not only the poorest, most vulnerable communities, but within those communities, children are generally the most vulnerable girls in particular. You know, there's a lot of research coming outta Tanzania, Ethiopia, and other countries now around the impact of heat stress and the impact that that has on learning outcomes, not just the physiological wellbeing. It's also being demanded. Our children globally want to learn about this. And they want to be part of the solution. And so it is the responsibility of the education sector to respond to our primary client's demand, right? Which is children. So, you know, it is the responsibility of the education sector to really be looking into these things. So how we started to work on this, I think we came in with a very clear intentionality, and I know you've done some episodes on this, but with a very clear intentionality that this was gonna get baked in, not bolted off. I use an example of me when I was going through school ICT. The ICT lab was at the back end of a dark corridor that I visited once every two weeks or something. So when I first got to university, I did a handwritten essay, right? I was the only person to do that. But I neither had the understanding of the expectation nor the capability to produce an essay on a computer, right? Because ICT, for me was bolted up. Now in many parts of the world, it's now baked in and it's seen as a tool to support holistic learning outcomes and people emerge from schooling with ICT skills. I'm not saying in all parts of the world, and particularly not in some of the areas where we work, but how do we take the same approach to climate where it is? Baked in to the way in which students are learning. And so they are developing climate literacy and climate compassion throughout their educational experience so that when they join society, it's just the expected way that they behave in terms of looking after and living more symbiotically with their environment and taking climate ethics. And seriously. I wanna go back to another point, Sarah, that you made. I'm coming back to quite a few of your points actually, but you know, the schooling system represents a massive network. That is deeply rooted across pretty much all communities for last mile services, and being able to activate this network to solve problems at scale is really powerful. So we looked at our schools 2030, which is a global movement, and how we could bring that together with the climate portfolio and activate that network of teachers as curriculum experts to work out how they could effectively integrate micro forests into cross-curricular learning to integrate climate in the environment, into cross-curricular learning and develop those solutions. If I try to do that on my own, I'm not only the wrong person to do it, but it would take me years. Activate a network of five 10. 15,000 teachers, and even if you've only get 10% of them producing something that can actually work, you've still got one and a half thousand solutions very, very quickly. So I think that power to activate these networks and realize that human capability, which often lies dormant at times within our systems, is very, very powerful. There is also a consistent complaint from teachers, schools and systems that they do not have enough access or enough teaching and learning materials. So the micro forest we've talked about a few times, how does that enable teachers to start engaging the environment as a pedagogical partner so that schools start to see the broader environment? As a pedagogical partner and a teaching and learning tool so that we are actually starting to embrace what's around us. Whenever I ask to create some fun, meaningful learning experiences, whenever I ask someone, what is your best memory of school? They don't say to me, oh, is when I was sitting in the classroom and I was doing A, B and C? No. They say I was standing in a river with the water rushing past me. It was freezing cold. Whatever. I'm a geographer. That was my geographer kill trip, right? But very rarely is it ever, ever in a classroom, right? So how are we enabling these children to experience learning in and through their environment and embracing them as pedagogical tools to support holistic learning outcome? And I think when you bring that all together and you align it. With government priorities as we did in Tanzania, around eight priorities that they wanted all schools to be working on to green their schooling. A thing where you get to then is you can very quickly go from schools to systems. Right. It's aligned the solutions that teachers in Tanzania came up with, what Tanzania solutions for Tanzanian schools and we moved very rapidly from schools to systems and offered a national public good to the government of Tanzania, to the ministry in Tanzania and to teachers across the country on how they could actually start responding to this demand and start meeting the needs of their children in their classrooms through effectively engaging in climate education and environmental learning. 

Yasmien: Thank you so much. I think having such dedicated portfolios working across climate education can already support what education funders or climate funders are already doing, can already intersect with areas that they are working on. Yet we are still having some misunderstandings when comes to global movements, working on education and the climate. For example, as we have sarah here, we can talk about global partnership for education leading initiatives, climate smart education. Systems initiative. When having meetings, when having discussions with a lot of education funders and stakeholders, we have witnessed that they are having a misunderstanding and assuming that it only entails, you know, such only school buildings or infrastructure. So I think we need to hear from Sarah, what does a climate smart approach to education? Is it limited to school building and infrastructure? As some of the funders and stakeholders we have talked with may assume or does it also encompass areas they're already supporting, such as curriculum development, teachers training, and overall system resilience?

Sarah: Thanks, Yasmein.  I think this is a really important question because so much of what we've heard from Roo and Elizabeth and even Katrina's efforts coming from all parts of the system, so really taking that systems lens for us. We work at the Global Partnership for Education to reinforce national capacity for education system transformation, and that for us is working with ministries, but also all of the national stakeholders and others who are really embodying the education system as a whole. So taking that lens, I think it's first important to set out how we've defined a climate smart education system. It's a very plastic term that could be defined in many ways, but for us it's really important that there are three dimensions to this. One, education systems that are capable of delivering equality and relevant education to all children, despite the fact that they're delivering it in a period of increasing climatological instability. Those are now the conditions in which education needs to be delivered. Secondly, climate Smart education system needs to also really critically mobilize learning and service to supporting the health of our planet's life systems upon which we depend, and if they fail to do either of those things, yet we're really not achieving the kind of relevant 21st century systems we need. Thirdly, and, and perhaps most importantly given the, the vast and growing inequality in the world is that climate smart education has to help us drive towards climate justice. So those are really the three North stars when we look at a system. But too often when we think about climate smart, we take a sort of technocratic definition of it. You know, the conversation stops at infrastructure. It's like stronger school buildings, flood proof classrooms, solar panels on rooftops. And those are important, but they're one element of a much more complex system. So for us, we really see the need to sort of weave climate resilience and environmental sustainability into every layer of the system. So that means first and foremost. Climate informed policies and budgets. It also means curricula that equip learners with knowledge and skills and values to challenge the root causes of environmental over exploitation and equip them to build the regenerative economies of the future. It also means teachers who are trained not only to deliver climate education, but also to respond to climate emergencies, to support students through disruption and to help support themselves when they're experiencing climate emergencies. It's Pedagogies that teach children agency, it's data systems that track climate risks and informed planning so that ministries understand which schools are the most vulnerable to what kinds of climate threats and can actively manage their resources to make sure those schools are protected. And of course it also means infrastructure so that it can withstand the next storm or drought or heat wave because we want to ensure that there are safe learning and working conditions for for students and teachers. So we definitely need more resilient infrastructure. You know, two years ago, I think in Pakistan, there was catastrophic floods in one massive event, but it destroyed over 26,000 schools, right? And 3.5 million children were out of school for months. Those children will never recoup that time that was lost. So we do need to build schools. We do need to make sure they're climate resilient, but we also need investments in a whole system approach that fundamentally transforms the way that governments, local leaders, school communities, how they learn about, understand, and act on climate change. When we're looking at what funders need to be thinking, it's how to take a kind of climate and a biodiversity lens to their investments in the same way that I think more and more we need to be looking at how every job can be a green job. Every investment can also be a green investment, so we need that lens. I think Rupert put it like bake it in, don't bolt it on. We really need to embed that lens across everything we do. Frankly, it's I think, not too much to say that nothing less than this is necessary if we are going to remain within a quote unquote safe space, safe operating space for humanity. We're breaching almost seven of nine planetary boundaries, and education is, I believe, one of the most powerful for the rapid hole of society transformation that's needed to move us to more regenerative and sustainable ways of existing together in balance with the living territories that sustain us and sustain our lives. So to me, I think as funders reflect on this, we really need to underscore that the challenges we now confront. Really testing the effectiveness of existing human capabilities for problem solving. So how do we look at education as a key part of the solution For us to be able to, as humanity, rise up and really figure out how we're going to get through this mess we've created? Ultimately we have to reorient our entire global economic systems to incentivize peaceful coexistence of all life on planet earth, right? So how do we do that? How do we tap into the minds and hearts and motivations and actions of the, the, the youth and, and the people leading us through the decades to come? So ultimately, I think humans have a huge capacity for problem solving. We have incredible capabilities for creativity. I mean, we know the solutions. We have them. So our investment strategies need to make sure that education is designed to really take that capability and mobilize it massively at scale quickly enough to make a coordinated approach for the bold kind of action that we need. And education and climate funders can get behind that. That's really critical. We're investing in climate smart education, not just building schools. And in doing that, we're actually investing literally in the fate of future generations. So I don't think anything could be more important than putting this agenda really at the center of funder investment strategies.

Yasmein: Thank you so much, Sarah. As we have here the compelling insights on the value of collaboration and the co-funding between the education and the climate funders. And as we conclude, maybe we can welcome a concrete takeaway or recommendations that can serve as a foundation for fostering effective action among education and the climate funders moving forward. So I think we can start building on this insightful conversation we are having today. What are the concrete actions or what one concrete actions that comes to your mind when you think about collaboration between education and the climate funder? Maybe we can start with Katrin. .

Katrin: Yes. Give me one thing, and I've been taking so many notes. I might go a little bit off script, Jasmine, because I wanna get back to some of these things. What I was glad that we heard in the last segment was that in the beginning of this conversation, we were talking a lot about the effect of climate on kids on schools. I'm glad that we got back through this conversation of who's causing climate change and where are we actually able to start and bring in education to deal with the root causes of climate change. And I think that's where I saw Sarah on like the systemic change that we need to see to go into this and to bake it in. And some of our foundations, for example, the Sabanci Foundation in Turkey, they started baking in climate. They're not necessarily themselves, I don't think they would characterize themselves as a climate foundation. They do a lot of education inclusion, women empowerment. But the baking in that they did is they just started asking their beneficiaries on, or their grantees of how does whatever you do affect climate change or how does climate change affect whatever you do right now? So they're starting to collect these measurements and these metrics to start showing. And I think that's a very clear way of, of maybe taking the step forward in both ends of the spectrum. So maybe for the educational, we can find like a coalition of educational funders and of climate funders to start like. Collecting these metrics. It doesn't have to take forever. Like it could just maybe for a year or just so we have some solid data to show where is this immense overlap and where are these immense, uh, possibility and opportunities that we could take forward. And then show so many things that education projects are already doing that are good for climate. I don't know if we have a way of showing this and telling this story correctly already and then vice versa. Can we do the same on the climate end of the story where we say, okay, this is how climate is already affecting or having an impact on education. So is that something we could maybe already say in terms of giving us the tools to tell the stories? Because I think one of the good things that are happening right now is exactly what we're doing now with this podcast. I think this is a fantastic first step. Try to bridge the two groups and bringing them together. We are still in a live system and a way of like mindset where we like statistics and data and we like to be transparent and be able to show on a little graph, this is what we didn't, this is how it affects. Maybe we can do like a little Venn diagram and then in the end they both come together. That would be wonderful just to, to maybe start collecting this data or sharing this data in a more sensible way, and maybe it's a way of using AI for this. Even now that we have it, we might as well use it for good to start being able to tell this story a little bit more effectively and efficiently.

Yasmien: Thank you so much, Katrin. Yes. We really hope this podcast bringing all of you here together can work as a first step into you fostering this meaningful collaboration between both education and the climate funders. So maybe we can move next to Roo. What Concrete action or  recommendation. You can share? 

Rubert:  well, Sarah's challenged us to change the global economic system for peace, prosperity, and planet very existential. So good to talk concrete. But thank you for doing that Katrin. I think you are absolutely right. Telling the right stories, you know, and telling them effectively. I think you used the word translator earlier on in the conversation, and I think being effective translators of the importance of climate and education to come together and across the two sectors is critical. So I think that's one thing that concretely we can do. The second, and Liz did allude to a conversation, had the other day around, you know, why is this not in our KPIs and things like this, do not expect this to happen by chance. It takes commitment and we need dedicated time that enables us to effectively collaborate with each other and not to expect it just to happen in our spare time. So we are committed to being net zero. By 2030 and we've got measurements behind that. How are we applying the same metric to developing and building cross-sectoral collaboration and a climate education portfolio. And I think the third one is drawing on the existing platforms of collaboration that exist.

A bit of a shout out for IEFG. I suppose, you know, how might we use the country chapters and Kenya? We have a country chapter, and to determine what does climate education look like for us as supporters of the education system in Kenya, right? And how are we gonna come together to realize the joint objectives of climate and education and to realize, as Liz also said earlier, the potential of education to be a driver of climate transformation, to solve as has been raised a lot today, the climate crisis today and realize  a planet and a prosperous and planet and a climate ethics that we need to drive sustainable progress of humanity moving forward. So those are my three. 

Yasmein: Thank you so much, Roo. I just think we can hear from Sarah. 

Sarah: Thanks, Yasmein. I mean, we are not going to solve the climate crisis, but we have a better shot of doing it if we work together. So I think that's really the first takeaway, is we absolutely need to have an inclusive dialogue across the climate and education sectors to understand where we have intersecting interests, objectives, and then where we have different tools and assets and resources that we can combine in in a more complimentary and aligned way. I think one of the things that we need to try and achieve is a better coherence across all of our strateg. Every organization or foundation has a set of interests and motivating factors around its work. But when we look and see what the comparative advantages of each of these actors together, then we can achieve a lot more than working individually. I mean, there may be some organizations for whom focusing on climate resilience and preparedness is really the key, and education is a factor that will achieve it. There may be others that want to mobilize climate change awareness and behavior change and education is the way to get. And I think there's a huge, and even growing movement, looking at the fact that we need a hundred million new skilled workers for the green transition, and we don't have people with the skills to actually resource with the workforces that are required. So there are, I think a, a range of issues that we can come together on, but we need to see where and how each of us brings something to the table. And then I think the other counterpart to that, and for GPE, we're really a country led partnership. And I think it's important as well for us to make sure that we're really grounding any kind of solutions or strategies that we're bringing to the table in the expertise that countries have themselves in their own national visions and in the kind of resources in the local leadership that are already there, already working to implement solutions. And I think it's about the solidarity to come behind those strategies at a national and local level and make sure that we're both coherent among ourselves, but also working in ways that are really supportive of nationally driven solutions and what young people in those countries are calling for in terms of their own needs and priorities. So to me those would be the two things. And I think at the Global Partnership for Education, we already do convene a lot of these stakeholders. So we, we really welcome and invite a dialogue with us around what role we might be able to play in convening a wider discussion among funders, among all of our stakeholders and partners so that we can work better together to mobilize our resources and, and spend them more effectively.

Yasmien: Thank you so much, Sarah. Bapon,  How can we effectively convene education and the climate funders to foster meaningful collaboration in a very concrete steps or concrete recommendations? 

Bapon: Yeah, so when you're looking at the climate financing is actually a little bit different than any other finance in the market. Because we run through the NDC, which is like a national determinant contribution, that government actually pledge as an umbrella. And then based on your climate risk, you actually define your national adaptation plan, which you call n. And once your N actually define that, what are the sector areas actually could your most vulnerable sector, it could be tion, it could be food security, it could be water, it could be energy. You then actually define a packaging, a project and program that could actually require a climate financing in that kind of architecture. So you need to follow that more systematic approach. And how actually. Those are actually country driven and need based solution. You can actually pull out, if you look at in a green climate fund point of view, we use actually a six fundamental metrics. So that is like a step by step procedure if you want to access a financing, how you can actually access those kind of climate finance from a large climate finance or like a green climate fund. So our six metrics applies for looking at what are the impact you actually generating. Either it could be mitigation in terms of reducing the emission, or it could be adaptation in terms of, you know, supporting through the beneficiary as well as indirect impact that you are creating into the society. And secondly, what are the paradigm shift you're actually bringing into the market to scaling up those kind of activities. Third, we try to look at more on the country driven approach because we are not at the top down. It need to be bottom up because climate change is impacting to our most vulnerable communities. So it's need to be driving from their side so that we ensure that it's embedded. And then fourth one is more on the country alignment. So that means it need to be aligned with the NDCs, national Development Goal, national education plan, whatever the plan exists within the country on the um, coherence and alignment. And then the 50 is more on looking at the sustainability, which is looking at the, what are the sustainable development goal you're actually trying to cover up. And the last one is more looking at the effectiveness and efficiency, what the project is actually bringing in terms of economic and as well as financial benefit. So if you can actually articulate a sort of thread or story based on the climate narrative. So what are the climate indices is actually creating a climate hazard and how that hazard is actually exposing to your community and what are the vulnerability element we are actually talking about so that you have a better narrative on the climate risk. And once you know your risk, you can actually easily define what are the barrier that actually creating into resolving those issues and what are the activities that we can actually bring upfront, reducing those barrier. And that's the way actually we normally design a climate change impact project to better aligned with the resilience aspect.

Yasmein: Thank you so much. We can conclude now with Elizabeth. 

Elizabeth: Thank you so much. Just to go back to what Sarah has said, every layer of the education system that made me just start thinking, I just, first thing that came to mind was ED certification, for example, of buildings, which is happening across organizations, and I thought, what would it mean to have an ED certified class on ED certified school? Does it mean? Must have rainwater harvesting, must have natural lighting, must have some fruit trees in the school. And just starting to think how can we make what we already have existing in climate and sustainability, fitting into education just as it is, but in a simpler and understandable language, and it started creating an edge certified school. Just thinking through that, and I think that's something we really need to think through. There are so many policies being put in place, is education being considered? We've seen archeological policies and we speak about climate in schools. You are speaking food, nutrition, health, not just curriculum or infrastructure and all those are important. But think about it, we are saying what kind of food is being grown? Is it in schools? Is it outside schools? And how can we make sure that even these policies as they're being created for food, for exports, it's also being said, food for schools. And what kind of food is it climate, resilient food being grown so that we ensure that we also have health kids. How the children that are growing and are moving to become the green generation that we want for the green skills that we require. Looking at every layer and then thinking from a climate perspective, what does that look like? So as I conclude, I think as we look ahead and as we have a really, really big opportunity to transform how education and climate funding or even work, how we collaborate and work together, whether it's in the short term, whether it's in the midterm or long term, and I think we need to co-design. We need to sit together and we ensure that this silos do longer exists. Like Rupert said, let's see how to make it very intentional, I think now become even more intentional through, but this conversation has made me deeper think through this. Just to see how we can be able to ensure that we have multi-layer pilots, we have flexibility, we are de-risking. When you talk about de-risking, you're always thinking about big factories. We never think about schools and the risks that could fit in there. And I think one of the two practical pathways I'll give I think are some of the ways, as the rest of you have already given others, is could we, for example, co-invest in even labs where we are able to pilot and to show what's working, what has worked for Ahan Foundation, what was act for somebody else? And then from there we could go to build programs that are long-term to able to implement. And then we make sure that whatever we do, we make it feasible. We make sure that it's replicable and also scalable. And also the second thing is to think through forming a kind of an education Climate Finders alliance. I think this was a first step. Today, and I think we've also learned a lot. I think Katrin and I have learned a lot from the education perspective, and then even if it's informal, could start informally. And then there's are groups called Rotate Convenience. We could have discussions, we could share case studies, and this could inform both the funders, the implementers. The beneficiaries so you can be able to have funds, have models that are really working and able to collaborate. So let's shift how we do grants. Let's focus more on co-creation, even as concepts come out there, as we share concepts, as we get new expressions of interest from funders that are more co-created, even as we have those that are independent because those matter too. And then also, let's invest in integrating in shared platforms. Finally, think let's develop theories of change that are climate education interrelated, because I think at the end of it all, this is about shared purpose. I think it's a shared purpose and we need to empower today's learners so that they can become the architects of tomorrow for the climate solutions that we need and the education systems that we need to create. Thank you. 

Yasmein: We hope you enjoyed listening to the conversation. This episode made one thing clear. Collaboration between education and the climate funders is not optional. It's essential. Our speakers who are already working at this intersection shared powerful real world examples of how climate and education partnerships can amplify impact. The collaboration between the Global Partnership for Education and the Green Climate Fund showed us what's possible when $1 is made to work twice as hard posting learning outcomes, and building climate resilience. At the same time, this is not just a smart investment, it's a transformative one. We also discussed the challenges that can hold these partnerships back, such as differing goals, indicators, and a limited understanding between sectors. Yet we heard encouraging examples such as from the Agha Foundation, which is beginning to integrate core sector work as a key performance indicator itself. The episode also should like on what it means to build the climate smart education systems. While many fund. Thinks that climate smart education systems is only about infrastructure. This is not true. Climate smart education systems are systems that first deliver quality inclusive education even in the face of climate instability. Second, mobilize learning supports the hills of planet, and third, most importantly, contribute to climate justice. Our speakers emphasized the importance of joint planning, shared learning platforms, and intentional investment to close the gap between climate and education efforts. They concluded by helping that today's conversation service as a meaningful first step toward bridging the gap between education and the climate fund. And the bringing both together around the shared vision for this podcast is produced by the International Education Funders Group. It was curated and edited by Yasmien Abdelghany, whose Postproduction by Sarah Myles. To learn more about IEFG, please visit www.ig.org and subscribe to the podcast for further conversations on education, philanthropy, and the climate crisis.