Conflict and coherence: Investigating Humanitarian-Development Coherence for Education in the Middle East and North Africa Region: Case Studies of Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

What is the state of education in conflict-affected countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region?
An ingrained assumption is that most countries in need of humanitarian aid for educational support gradually shift to system-centered development assistance. Yet many countries do not follow this progression. As crises become protracted, humanitarian start-up efforts to bolster education sectors can move toward system recovery pivoting to again address immediate needs. The back-and-forth movement leaves future education prospects hard to read or anticipate.
This study employs the concept of humanitarian-development coherence (HDC) to analyze unsteady education situations in three MENA countries marked by longstanding and ongoing conflicts: Lebanon,
Syria and Yemen. It will assess how the humanitarian stress on the present and how development’s focus on the future play out (and overlap) across this trio of contexts, and then reflect on their implications for education across the MENA region.

This study is part of the Middle East Education Research, Training and Support (MEERS) initiative, in which the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has commissioned Social Impact to conduct this investigation. Each of the three case studies (including the recommendations) were organized and written by separate authors of the study team: Holly-Jane Howell for Lebanon, Obai Ezzi (together with Holly-Jane Howell) for Syria (Raqqa, Northeast) and Marc Sommers for Yemen. This study is a companion publication to three related works, which the authors of this study also wrote:

• Donors Toolkit: Humanitarian-Development Coherence;

• Practitioners Toolkit: Humanitarian-Development Coherence (also available in Arabic); and

• HDC 101: What is Humanitarian-Development Coherence? (also available in Arabic)

Dr. Sommers served as the lead author for this study while Ms. Howell is the lead author of the toolkitrelated publications. There also is an Arabic version of this study. All works are available on USAID’s Development Experience Clearinghouse.