Report
Can Disaster Risk Financing keep children learning when drought strikes?
The Climate Resilient Education Systems Trial (CREST) set out to answer that question in the drought-prone counties of Garissa and Tana River, Kenya. Funded by FCDO and delivered by the IRC with Africa Risk Capacity and Kenya's Ministry of Education , CREST is one of the first efforts to pre-arrange finance specifically to protect education. When a drought payout was triggered in early 2026, it released USD650,000 and mobilised a pre-planned response of cash transfers and remote learning. An independent process evaluation has been conducted by the Centre for Disaster Protection and it tells the honest story of what worked, what didn't, and why , from the challenge of designing a reliable trigger to the hard-won lessons now shaping how Kenya and the wider sector finance education before disaster strikes.
