Building a Foundation to Rapidly Respond to Immediate Education Needs

While education is life-saving and life-sustaining for children and young people in humanitarian emergencies, it is often not prioritized at the onset of a new emergency.  

To address this critical gap, a partnership comprising the European Commission’s Directorate General for Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations, the Global Education Cluster (GEC), UNICEF, REACH, UNESCO’s International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP), Save the Children, Translators without Borders and NORCAP set out to ensure education is included in rapid response to emergencies. 

A key objective of this partnership was to ensure practitioners have the requisite skills, knowledge, and tools to advocate for and facilitate education’s inclusion either through a Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM) or complementary rapid response.  

"It is necessary to change the way of understanding EiE rapid response and to ensure coordinators and practitioners have the requisite tools and knowledge" emphasizes Luca Fraschini, GEC Capacity Development Specialist and the lead facilitator of this training.  

To this end, the partners developed and rolled out the Strengthening Rapid Education Response Training, structured around the sections of the new and first of its kind toolkit on Rapid Education Response, the training typically was delivered in a two-phased approach: a regional training of around 3 countries to facilitate exchange, followed by an individual country training to hone in on their specific learning needs. 

Blending theory with practice, an important outcome of the training was to support country teams being applying the skills and knowledge taught at the training by kickstarting development of their rapid education response preparedness plans.   

“The training came in perfect timing to complement the process of developing Niger Preparedness Plan for the Rapid Response in Education, [which] consolidated main takeaways from the training and provided a fully-fledged communication flow at the regional and national level, mapping of partner interventions by region, rapid response timeline, minimum response package as well as rapid assessment tools specifically for education,” shared Loujine Khoury, Niger’s Education Cluster Coordinator. 

Since its launch in 2021, 244 participants from 85 organizations working across 12 countries (Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Chad, Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Iraq, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, South Sudan, Yemen)  were trained remotely on the fundamentals of rapid education response approaches and were provided practical guidance on how coordinate such rapid education response.  

This practical outcome was not only well received by participants, but also enabled the GEC to work with country teams to identify further areas for support for country teams to take forward rapid education response beyond the training. 

“This preparedness plan establishes the mechanism by which a rapid education in emergencies intervention will be conducted in coordination with the existing Rapid Response Mechanism,” highlighted Amani Passy, Nigeria’s Education in Emergencies Working Group Coordinator.  

Learn more about the Strengthening Rapid Education Response project here.  

Contact the GEC Helpdesk for any questions about the training.