NORRAG Special Issue 02: Data Collection and Evidence Building to Support Education in Emergencies

The second edition of NORRAG Special Issue (NSI) published in April 2019, is dedicated to data collection and evidence building to support Education in Emergencies (EiE). It focuses on why data and evidence are crucial for understanding and addressing situations of emergency and protracted crises and provides insight into the ethical and material challenges when gathering evidence. NSI 02 illustrates the lack of data and evidence about good practices and critical needs of children in emergency situations and its consequences.  

NSI 02 contains 33 concise articles and is divided into 5 parts, each focusing on data collection and evidence building in Education in Emergencies:

• Part 1 gives an overview of the states of research in EiE, emphasising opportunities and gaps. It provides a cartography of initiatives both at the global and local levels, perceived as opportunities to improve research in EiE fields. Authors share the view that there are important challenges and limits to be addressed.  
• Part 2 draws more specifically on methodologies for understanding “what works”, and therefore provides advice on “what did not work”. It highlights how complementary approaches are key to the design of effective, rigorous, participative and inclusive research frameworks. 
• Part 3 provides a panorama of promising practices for data and evidence. Contributions from practitioners directly involved in the field give examples of effective education interventions while also raising concerns about the numerous challenges that they face in situations of forced displacement. 
• Part 4 digs into how data building and evidence tend to overlook critical EiE issues, especially when it concerns populations already marginalized before the emergency. Authors make the call for a greater anticipation of this issue, to reduce disparities in data building and evidence that could potentially harm the most vulnerable. 
• Finally, part 5 offers a reflection on ethics and quality research in EiE fields. Authors share their experiences conducting research in the EiE field and the challenges that they confronted; they conclude with strong advice for future stakeholders regarding data and evidence building in the EiE field.

Overall, this issue provides contributions that further exemplify the call for more and better data in EiE, with specific programmatic actions to be taken by institutions as well as policy planning and implementation that needs to be undertaken by governments.