2022-2023 Rapid Response Team Support Overview

The GEC leverages our Rapid Response Team (RRT) to promptly support country clusters and working groups to coordinate effective and accountable education in emergencies responses where and when they were needed most critically, including in sudden onset or escalating crises in contexts like Ukraine, Pakistan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, State of Palestine, Syria, Türkiye and DRC.

Strong financial support from Education Cannot Wait enabled the RRT to provided bespoke technical support from 2022-2023 to address contextualized needs of country clusters and working groups, covering coordination, information management, needs assessment, strategy development and thematic support in child protection-education and mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) integration through Child Protection (CP)-EiE collaboration, gender and gender-based violence

Notable examples include:

Coordination

• Türkiye and North-West Syria: Following the earthquakes in February 2023, the GEC provided critical support to bolster the education sector coordination mechanisms in both Türkiye and North-West Syria Hubs with the deployments of both coordination and information management RRTs. In Türkiye, RRT support resulted in the development of the sector workplan, improved reporting, and development of two technical working groups to improve the quality of the response.
• Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC): The GEC supported the scale up of coordination in eastern DRC. This included working with national coordinators to establish cluster priorities and develop an efficient roles and responsibilities matrix, coordination support between three eastern provinces, and development of a joint advocacy note on use of schools by internally displaced persons (IDPs), in collaboration with the Child Protection Area of Responsibility (CPAoR), Shelter Cluster and Camp Coordination and Camp Management Cluster.
• State of Palestine: The GEC remotely provided critical coordination support to the Cluster following the escalation of crises to both national and sub-national (Gaza) levels. The RRTs supported the Cluster team with advocacy products and opportunities, such as an INEE webinar and EiE Hub Talk, for larger dissemination of education needs, gaps and to raise awareness. The RRTs also supported the development of the response plan and sector standards to harmonize the education response in Gaza, including a response framework integrated with MHPSS. This was presented to donors, the Ministry of Education, and partners, and now guides the Education Cluster response.

Information Management

• DRC: The GEC supported the Cluster to create and implement Information Management tools to reinforce coordination, advocacy, and accountability (5Ws, Secondary Data Review (SDR), Schools Statuses, Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO)/Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP), Reporting, Visualisation/Infographic etc.). The quality data collected aims to contribute to the MYRP. Moreover, over 70 partners were trained on IM and the different tools and techniques, enhancing understanding of the importance of data for a good coordination, timely monitoring and inclusiveness.
• South Sudan: The GEC reinforced data collection and analysis support for the South Sudan Education Cluster. This deployment was key in developing data collection tools, supporting data collection and cleaning, producing information management products, and delivering a PowerBi training for 29 partners.
• Sudan: The Sudan Education Cluster received GEC support to bolster information management and analysis, including data collection and cleaning, development of information management products, and the development of an information management strategy document.
• Mozambique: The GEC supported the Mozambique Education Cluster to strengthen their information management functions, updating the 5Ws data collection tools, developing a HRP monitoring plan, and creating a dashboard template illustrating disaggregated reach by location to help guide a more targeted and coordinated response.

Gender and Gender Based Violence Risk Mitigation

• Burkina Faso: The GEC supported the Education Cluster to develop and validate its new strategy. This included dedicated support to ensure gender-targeted interventions for at risk or married adolescent girls were reflected, as well as GBV risk mitigation measures.
• Mali: The GEC supported the Cluster to convene an intersectoral collaboration workshop for the Education Cluster, CPAoR and GBVAoR. The workshop convened 31 participants, with the objective of strengthening gender and GBV risk mitigation across the response. This led to the identification of priority actions to strengthen integration, and a strategy for the Cluster with strong gender and GBV risk mitigation commitments.

Child Participation and Child Safeguarding

• Central African Republic (CAR), DRC, Myanmar, Niger, Nigeria, North East Syria, North West Syria and Pakistan: Leveraging synergies with the United States Agency for International Development, Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance’s (USAID BHA’s) “Learning from the COVID-19 Pandemic: Strengthening cluster and local preparedness and capacities in needs assessment and analysis” project, the GEC provided support to Education Clusters, CPAoRs, and their partners by designing relevant indicators and child-friendly (age-adapted) data collection and reporting tools; training enumerators to facilitate focus group discussions with children; analysis of data and findings; drafting a child participation report and integration of key findings in the wider needs assessment reports.
• Burkina Faso and Niger: Leveraging synergies with the USAID BHA’s “Learning from the COVID-19 Pandemic: Strengthening cluster and local preparedness and capacities in needs assessment and analysis” project, the GEC supported the Cluster to pilot innovative ways to "close the feedback loop” with children who participated in the Joint Education and Child Protection Needs Assessment – a key element of accountability to them. Children’s feedback was summarized into age-appropriate leaflets and coloring booklets illustrated by local artists (Burkina Faso and Niger) to present the assessment findings to children in a fun, innovative way. Girls and boys enjoyed the reading comprehension and colouring activities while seeing the results of their participation in the assessment.
• DRC: The GEC prepared a presentation on child safeguarding and image-sharing guidelines for Education Cluster partners to increase awareness and understanding around child safeguarding issues for the North Kivu Hub. As a result, guidelines on sharing children’s images were developed for the North Kivu Hub and submitted to the DRC Education Cluster for additional uptake at that level. Linked to this, a standard consent form has been developed by the cluster.
• State of Palestine: The GEC developed child safeguarding materials for EiE frontline workers. A short, user-friendly resource pack was put together, including ready-to-use templates for a Code of Conduct, Child Safeguarding Policy, and photo release form so that partners have fit-for-purpose materials as soon as access is feasible.
• Ethiopia: developed Child Safeguarding and Child Participation Cluster Commitments through a 2-day workshop with 32 EiE practitioners and cluster partners to make their education programmes safer and more participatory for children.
• Myanmar: delivered a workshop for 29 partners on identification and mitigation of potential risks in consulting children during needs assessments.

Child Protection and Education in Emergencies Collaboration

• Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger: The GEC supported the country teams to respond to children’s interlinked education and protection needs arising from joint CP-EiE needs assessments undertaken with support from USAID’s BHA, and strategy development involving the CP AoR, to co-design relevant response strategies to the identified needs. This support resulted in the development of inter-sector collaboration frameworks to guide complementary implementation of integrated responses with clarity on the roles and responsibilities of each sector (Niger: Matrix for MHPSS roles and responsibilities contextualised from the GEC’s CP-EiE Collaboration in Coordination Framework, with the goal of improving the quality and reach of MHPSS services through coordinated efforts; Burkina Faso: CP-EiE Collaboration Matrix; Mali: CP-GBV-EiE Collaboration Framework). In Mali, this went further by also incorporating the GBV AoR and partners for a more holistic response and framework. In Niger, joint advocacy messages were developed based on the holistic needs identified in Niger’s BHA supported joint CP-Education Needs Assessment and re-activated a working group within the Education Cluster to lead implementation of the inter-sector framework.
• Niger: supported a policy for children in centers and host schools in Niger for CP & EiE partners, an inter-sector policy to improve the protection of children in schools and regroupment centers;
• Yemen: supported CP-EiE collaboration framework, outlining common objectives and the roles and responsibilities of each group.
• DRC and North West Syria: Following the February 2023 earthquake, the GEC worked with the CP AoR to develop a template to guide the Child Protection and Education sectors in coordinating Child-Friendly Space (CFS) / Temporary Learning Space (TLS) activities in the response. The template outlines roles and responsibilities for each sector across different activities and includes guiding questions to help divide these responsibilities at the country-level. In the DRC, the Education Cluster and CP AoR guidelines on integrating protection and education in Children Friendly Spaces (CFS) and Temporary Learning and Protection Spaces (ETAPS), to assist planning and implementation of CFS and ETAPS to reduce duplication of services and enhance points of integration and referral.

Mental Health and Psychosocial Support

• North-West Syria and State of Palestine: The GEC supported country teams to ensure MHPSS in first phase responses through building of this topic within Education Rapid Needs Assessments, reflecting MHPSS activities in response strategies, strengthening resource mobilization to deliver MHPSS services in the sector, and fostering collaborative ways of inter-sector working for integrated MHPSS responses. Furthermore, the RRT delivered technical sessions and developed contextualised guidance materials to cluster partners to increase capacities in the provision of quality MHPSS services, e.g. the GEC MHPSS in EiE guidance/tipsheet for the earthquake response,  MHPSS and Recreational activities Draft Guidelines and a MHPSS-EiE orientation session for Gaza MHPSS Task Force members on integrating and coordinating MHPSS and Recreational activities.
• Lebanon: The GEC supported the country team to strengthen the inclusion of MHPSS, building on needs assessment findings, across the Education Sector’s Learning Continuity Plan (EiE strategy), the ECW MYRP, FER, and Lebanon Contingency Plan. As a result of advocacy efforts, teachers’ and children’s wellbeing was included as a main indicator in the Sector’s response plans in addition to complementary activities for community MHPSS through engaging caregivers in supporting their children learning outcomes and wellbeing.
• Venezuela: supported the Cluster’s Intersectoral framework for mental health, psychosocial support and socioemotional learning which outlines the main roles between the Education Cluster, Health Cluster, Protection Cluster and it’s CP and GBV AoRs to avoid duplication and enhance complementarity for a multi-sectoral delivery of MHPSS services at all levels of the MHPSS pyramid.

Localization

• South Sudan and DRC: Synergizing with a DANIDA-funded project, the GEC designed and supported the process to establish a NGO co-coordinating partner at national (South Sudan) and subnational (North Kivu, DRC), coupled with mentoring and technical support, which has increased local leadership in the cluster and has increased coordinator capacity to strengthen the education response. The observed impact of having a NNGO Co-Coordinator in South Sudan has been increased participation of national NGOs in cluster meetings and the engagement of local and national actors in the Localisation Task Team, as well as strong engagement in external representation.  
• Ukraine, North-West Syria, and Cameroon: the GEC supported consultative strategy development processes that are inclusive of local and national organisations at both the national and sub-national level, as well as ensuring the inclusion of localisation as a guiding pillar of the strategies. The consultative process led in Ukraine was seen as a best practice example with both Ministry of Education and local actor engagement at every stage of the process and translation of documents into the local language, generating strong buy-in and commitment to delivering the education cluster strategy. It was also locally adapted and sub-national clusters created annexes which more contextually grounded and outlined where their specific focus would be in the strategy. Local actors felt that their views and ideas were reflected. In North-West Syria, L/NNGO partners who attended the workshop in Gaziantep, rolled out a further 6 workshops inside North-West Syria. These localised workshops were held in Arabic to facilitate greater L/NNGO participation, consultation and involvement in decision making, and for the strategy to better reflect the on-the ground realities as known by L/NNGOs implementing directly in North-West Syria. This was the first time strategy development workshops were facilitated inside NW Syria to feed into the overall strategy and promoted greater communication among stakeholders.
• Afghanistan: mapped challenges and opportunities to strengthen sub-national cluster coordination and developed practical recommendations with the coordination team to create a more effective local education response across Afghanistan’s Provinces (actions continuing into 2024).
• Northeast Syria (NES): synergizing with a DANIDA supported project, supported a localization pilot which increased local actor understanding of and participation in the HNO/HRP process through translation of HNO/HRP documents and training conducted in the local language. This activity was a recommendation of the 2021 GEC-supported workshop where NES EiE Working Group members identified key activities for localization, thus building continuity of GEC-supported efforts and committing to support required initiatives and gaps. This pilot resulted in higher L/NNGO submission of project sheets for the 2023 HRP, and thereby potential access to humanitarian funding.
• Nigeria: supported the Localization Task Team to develop their localization strategy and integrated action plan.

Preparedness and Anticipatory Action (AA)

• Mali, Mozambique, and Pakistan: the GEC supported country teams to create fit-for-purpose templates and remotely supporting workshops to consultatively develop contingency and preparedness plans at national and sub-national levels.
• Nigeria: The GEC supported the Education in Emergencies Working Group to consider Anticipatory Approaches to Education within their Education Response Plan, and opportunities to engage in OCHA’s AA piloting.

Disability Inclusion

• Somalia: drafted an action plan for the strengthened integration of disability inclusion through the Education Cluster response.