Advocacy Working Group

***The 2018-2021 INEE Working Groups have concluded their work as of May 2021. A consultation and review of a new structure of INEE network spaces is in process and will soon be shared with INEE members.***

The Advocacy Working Group (AWG) brings together key education in emergencies advocates to promote the right to quality education for all learners affected by crisis.

The AWG seeks to play a role in both providing technical guidance as to what advocacy looks like, and in organizing and connecting advocacy efforts at global and local levels.

The AWG seeks to be the potential sum of many member organisations, but with a unique ‘neutral’ voice, a long history of serious engagements, and as a natural convenor in advocacy. 

Priorities and Objectives

The AWG seeks to amplify the voices of the INEE network members, collectively and individually. This enables them to achieve change in and around the debate on education in emergencies.

The AWG seeks to assist INEE, both the network, the various network spaces, and the Secretariat itself, to be a thought leader and a convenor on education in emergencies in order to ensure safe, quality education is a priority in humanitarian response.

Activities

For the remainder of the AWG mandate from May 2020 to May 2021 the focus of the AWG is to fulfill the 2020/21 AWG Workplan in the following core areas:

• Follow up on the Global Refugee Forum pledges to education to ensure transparency and accountability, and showcase INEE’s own achievements towards its commitments. To contribute to this, a series of roundtables on the right to education for refugees, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic were held in July 2020. The outcome paper from these roundtables can be found here.
• Advocate for the rights and obligations of non-state and private actors to provide EiE. This has been taken forward through an advocacy brief and webinar on Private Sector Engagement in Education in Emergencies: Rights and regulations
• Amplify voices and messages from marginalized groups (caregivers, children and youth, teachers etc. in crisis contexts) on the impact of COVID-19 on education. This has been taken forward through a Call for Stories which contributed towards the film for the 20th Anniversary and through the use of storytelling as an advocacy tool.
• Promote the outcomes of the 20th Anniversary of INEE and use the report as a strategic opportunity to amplify the importance of EiE, given that 127 million children in crisis affected contexts are out of school. development coherence
• Advocate for education to be at the forefront of the report produced by the High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement in September 2021. This will be taken forward through a series of roundtables in the five INEE languages to enable internally displaced students and teachers, and those that work with them, to discuss their education. The key recommendations from these roundtables will be presented to the High Level Panel in May 2021.
• Identify gaps in advocacy tools for EiE and develop an advocacy toolkit for INEE members

Members

• Care US
• Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI)
• Global Campaign for Education (GCE)
• Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA)
• Global Education Cluster (GEC)
• International Rescue Committee (IRC)
• Oxfam
• Plan International UK
• Protect Education in Insecurity and Conflict (PEIC)
• Right to Education Initiative (RTE)
• Save the Children
• Xavier Project

INEE Secretariat Staff: Lyndsay Bird, Interim Coordinator, Advocacy

Key AWG Resources

• Advocacy Brief: Private Sector Engagement in Education in Emergencies: Rights and Regulations
• Workshop: Using video as a tool for storytelling and advocacy on EiE
• Outcome report from a series of roundtables: Refugee Education during COVID-19: Crisis and Opportunity
• Blog: Fighting for education amidst COVID-19 in Uganda
• Blog: COVID-19 challenges are far greater in pre-existing crisis contexts
• Advocacy Brief: COVID-19 Learning Must Go On
• Webinar: Advocating for EiE during COVID-19
• A set of advocacy messages: Prioritize, Protect and Plan for education during and after COVID-19
• Advocacy Brief: Achieving SDG4 for Children and Youth Affected by Crisis
• Webinar: Advocacy for Education in Emergencies in Arabic
• Webinar: Advocacy for Education in Emergencies
• Webinar: EiE Advocacy Using Human Rights Approaches

Advocacy Resources

• INEE Advocacy Resource Collection
• COVID-19 Resource Collection
• EiE Timeline
• Global Education Cluster
• Education Cannot Wait Fund
• Global Campaign for Education
• UNESCO Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report
• No Lost Generation
• Right to Education
• Global Coalition to Protecting Education Under Attack (GCPEA)

History 

The AWG emerged in 2012 out of the Education Cannot Wait Advocacy Group where the focus was on advocating for better, more predictable, and more long-term funding for education in emergencies. One outcome of this work was the development of the Education Cannot Wait fund. The AWG is now into its third mandate (2018-2021), where we have covered issues (among others), such as achieving SDG4 for children and youth affected by crises, including those who have been forcibly displaced; how to ensure children and young people in crisis situations continue to learn during the COVID-19 pandemic; listening to the voices and stories of children, young people and teachers; and investigating private sector engagement in education in emergencies.