Elevating Education in Emergencies

Elevating Education in Emergencies is a series of four thematic meetings unpacking the centrality of education in humanitarian responses. Convened by the Permanent Mission of Norway to the UN and the Permanent Mission of Switzerland to the UN, and facilitated by the Global Education Cluster (GEC), this four-part series started in 2018 and will come to an end with the final event on 25 June 2020. The final event focuses on the humanitarian-development nexus and the role of coordination in ensuring uninterrupted learning for affected children and youth in crisis contexts.

This framing paper draws extensively on research, including a series of case studies conducted by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) during 2018 and 2019, which examined how humanitarian and development actors can effectively coordinate to strengthen education outcomes for children and young people affected by crises. The research was commissioned by the Global Partners’ Project, which brings together the GEC, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), and the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE), with generous funding from Education Cannot Wait (ECW) – the global fund dedicated to education in emergencies and protracted crises.

The COVID-19 crisis and its near-universal impact on education systems makes providing attention to uninterrupted learning more urgent than ever. While this paper was first drafted and research conducted prior to this global pandemic, some aspects have relevance to the current context. Its focus, however, remains on ongoing and future emergencies in low and middle-income countries.