Increase in EU spending on education in emergencies
Photo © European Union ECHO
(BRUSSELS) - The EU Commission adopted Friday a new policy framework to increase humanitarian funding for education in emergencies and crises to 10% of its overall humanitarian aid budget as of 2019.
"With humanitarian crises growing across the world, millions of children are at risk of growing up without education. We have a responsibility to act to prevent lost generations. ," said the Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management Christos Stylianides: "Our new policy will allow us to help children better and quicker than before, even in the most difficult situations. To do so, we will strengthen cooperation with other donors and partners and better link our short and long term assistance. The EU is now a global leader in bringing children back to school. 8% of our humanitarian aid budget goes to education in emergencies this year, 8 times up from 2015. We aim to reach 10% in 2019,"
Across the world access to education is denied to millions of children by conflict, forced displacement, violence, climate change, and disasters. Syria, Iraq, Yemen, occupied Palestinian territory, Afghanistan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo are among some 35 crisis-affected countries where nearly 75 million school-aged children experience disruption to their education. Among refugees, just over half of the children of primary school age attend school, while less than a quarter of the equivalent age group are in secondary school and merely 1 per cent in tertiary education.
The new policy framework sets out four key priorities: improving access to learning opportunities for children and young people, providing quality education and training, ensuring that education is protected from attacks, and introducing rapid and innovative education responses.
The policy also aims to bring children caught up in humanitarian crises back to learning within 3 months.
Under the new proposal the EU will strengthen the links between tools and instruments available under humanitarian aid and development cooperation. This will build on the substantial contribution EU development assistance already provides to education projects in fragile and crisis affected countries and regions across the world, including through multilateral financing to global initiatives such as the Global Partnership for Education and Education Cannot Wait.
Communication on Education in Emergencies and Protracted Crises