Current context of concatenated crises
There are currently an estimated1 224 million school-aged children in need of support in their educational process due to the impact of humanitarian crises. This highlights not only the disruption of the educational process caused by crises and school closures, but also the learning difficulties experienced by child and adolescent learners living in contexts of crisis, displacement, asylum and refuge. Of the 224 million children and adolescents affected by crises, approximately 78.2 million are outside the school system. The negative impact of this situation is twofold: on the one hand, it greatly impedes the cognitive and personal development of these children, and on the other hand, it puts them at greater risk of violence. A further 119.6 million students affected by humanitarian crises are failing to achieve minimum literacy and mathematical skills despite attending school. Finally, an estimated 24.2 million students may appear to be achieving an acceptable level in the aforementioned skills but are still suffering from the effects of crises and therefore require specific humanitarian support (e.g. through psychosocial support, a crucial component of Education in Emergencies).
Young girls, adolescent girls and young women face greater barriers to accessing education, completing their education and preparing themselves to be active members of society with opportunities for the future, including employment
Financing the education sector: why is it important to fund education in emergencies?
Education in emergencies is underfunded. Although donor disbursement has quadrupled in the last 10 years (from $163M to $786M), these efforts fall short of the amount demanded by OCHA for educational needs, a figure that has multiplied by 7 during the last decade (from just over $400M to $2,900M)13. In 2022, only 26% of the demand for funding for the education sector was met. Between 2016 and 2022, the education sector received only 3% of the total humanitarian budget14, far from the 10% of humanitarian funding for education requested by the Global Campaign for Education. While it is true that those financial contributions to the education sector provided as part of multi-sectoral responses (i.e. projects where other services such as health, food, shelter, etc. are provided in addition to education) cannot be easily accounted for by current global humanitarian funding monitoring systems, the trend shown by the global humanitarian financial analysis remains clear: the humanitariansystem does not prioritize education.
