Attachments
Introduction, objectives, and rationale
Addressing education needs in crisis settings in a comprehensive and adapted manner is a necessary step towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4, as well as all the other SDGs with which education has reciprocal linkages. As the lead UN Agency for the SDG 4, UNESCO is strongly committed to building the resilience of education systems worldwide, to limit the effects of disasters on the physical, emotional, and social well-being of the most vulnerable learners and educators.
The Education 2030 Framework for Action specifically stresses the need to ‘develop education systems that are more resilient and responsive in the face of conflict, social unrest and natural hazards – and to ensure that education is maintained during emergency, conflict and post-conflict situations’. However, in most countries impacted by emergencies and protracted crises, governments and their partners face major, recurring challenges when planning for and responding to education in emergency and protracted crises. One of the most critical challenges faced is the lack of disaggregated, reliable, and up-to-date data that can serve as a baseline for preparedness, response, and recovery strategic plans and programmes, while monitoring the impact of progress made.
When available, Education in Emergencies (EiE) data are typically fragmented because their collection and use tend to mirror and sometimes reinforce misalignment between humanitarian and development programming (Buckner, 2019; INEE et al., 2019). The data fragmentation and lack of proper coordination among the organizations working on EiE may have multiple negative consequences, such as inaccurate identification of vulnerable groups and their needs, insufficient and misallocated funding, inefficient policy and programme interventions, weak education sector plans, and lower leadership capacity of ministries of education (MoEs) in times of crisis.
Several initiatives are under way to address the multiple challenges related to educational data in emergency settings. As part of these global efforts, UNESCO – with the support of Education Cannot Wait (ECW), Norwegian Capacity (NORCAP, belonging to the Norwegian Refugee Council), and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) – has committed to supporting MoEs in countries affected by emergencies and protracted crises, to strengthen and adapt their institutional information systems to better inform EiE strategies and programmes. Strengthened data systems can enhance government accountability in EiE, while facilitating monitoring of the resilience of the education system faced with recurring emergencies.
It is against this background that the guidelines and toolkit aim to strengthen EiE institutional system data. More specifically, they aim to generate a diagnosis of the EiE data ecosystem at a given point in time, mainly by evaluating the opportunities for integrating humanitarian EiE data systems with development and national institutional education information systems.
They include approaches and tools for the identification of the EiE data needs, the mapping of the existing relevant data sources and producers, assessment of the quality of those data sources, and an examination of how data needs are covered by existing data and opportunities to address the identified data gaps.