Humanitarian-Development Coherence in Education: working together in crisis contexts

The purpose of this paper is to demystify the concept of humanitarian-development coherence. Using the New Ways of Working definition, or working over multiple years toward collective outcomes based on the comparative advantage of a diverse range of actors, this paper recapitulates the concept of humanitarian-development coherence and why it is critical, provides an overview of barriers to coherence in the education sector and identifies illustrative examples of coherent action. 

The paper proposes a set of actions and recommendations to strengthen humanitarian-development coherence in the education sector, with guidelines for education stakeholders to take collective action and advocate for improved coherence within their own agencies and across the education sector’s full spectrum of policy and programming. It is aimed at a broad range of humanitarian, development, government and civil society actors who are working to ensure that all individuals have the right to a quality, safe, relevant and equitable education.