Poor access to education and gender inequalities are common in states experiencing conflict or emerging from conflict. This paper, prepared for the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Fragile States Group, looks at how development assistance in fragile states can enhance access to education for the poor and vulnerable, improve governance and increase aid effectiveness. It recommends strengthening the evidence base, principles, monitoring and evaluation and co-ordination of work in this area.
The DAC categorises fragile states as those experiencing deterioration, arrested development, post-conflict transition or early recovery. Turnaround is understood as the durable cessation of conflict, sustained economic growth and improvements in human development indicators.
There is considerable momentum around developing approaches to support education in fragile states, but there are considerable challenges associated with this. Key issues are:
- A variety of evidence shows how education can fuel fragility (by fuelling hatred for example) but there is limited contrary evidence supporting anecdotal accounts and intuition that education can help reduce fragility and promote turnaround.
- Evidence is available on education delivery outcomes in the contexts of post-conflict, transition and early recovery. There is limited information on education in states experiencing arrested development (lack of will) or deteriorating conditions.
- Teachers and curriculum can be important drivers of change, especially considering broader processes of state-building.
- Current development goals place emphasis on basic education, but attention to post-basic education is likely to be important in fragile states.
- Context is crucial. Education as prevention might be appropriate where a country is in danger of deteriorating or in arrested development. Education as protection is necessary during conflict/deterioration. Education for peace-building is relevant in early recovery/post-conflict.
- Small-scale local interventions can raise challenges for scaling up. Effective interventions blend immediate education delivery with longer-term considerations of state building and security.
Opportunities for effective donor support exist where there is initial will at a local, national or international level. Donors can target aid by supporting this will, strengthening will at other levels and developing it into capacity. Suggestions for ways forward include:
- Developing a compendium of case studies associated with education in fragile states, bringing together available material and drawing on practitioner experience.
- Developing principles for supporting education in fragile states. This work should draw on the overlapping networks of the INEE, DAC and FTI and consider ways of identifying and supporting capacity.
- Supporting analysis of drivers of change in fragile states. This should utilise existing drivers of change approaches, conflict analysis approaches and recent studies on education.
- Ensuring that monitoring and evaluation of programmes addresses both immediate educational outcomes and broader benefits such as promoting security and supporting state-building.
- Considering the development of a transitional trust fund for linking support to fragile states between humanitarian and development phases.
- Coordination within and between agencies (including non-governmental organisations). This should bring together those responsible for governance and education support in humanitarian and development phases.
