Reaching those most vulnerable to climate impacts with education opportunities

• In Event: Decreasing vulnerability: Inclusion in education and community resilience

Proposal

The 2019 Arab Global Education Monitoring Report highlights how environmental degradation and extreme weather conditions, having an impact on production and income generation from agriculture and livestock, account for 10 to 20 per cent of the migration/movement observed in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region (UNESCO, forthcoming). With the highest levels of migration and displacement in the world, the Arab States and the MENA region host a significant number of children who are on the move for a wide range of reasons. While consequences of – and the vulnerabilities associated with – increased variability and frequency of extreme weather events on certain population groups (such as the pastoralists, for example) are unexpected, mobility is often a strategy adopted to cope with scarce and variable resource endowment (IIED, 2008) such as crop failure or water scarcity. Furthermore, environmental factors have consequences on security and there are underlining complex (and often hidden) links between natural resources and violent conflicts that prompt large waves of displacement.

Educate A Child (EAC), a programme of Education Above All, addresses the educational needs of the hardest-to-reach children, those who are not even afforded the opportunity to be in a learning environment. Drawing on a desk study commissioned by EAC and GIZ and lessons learnt from EAC-supported projects, this panel will examine different strategies adopted by selected projects to address the needs of out-of-school children from pastoralist and nomadic communities in Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Mali and internally displaced and refugee children in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.

The literature review shows extreme variations across different mobility and displacement contexts in terms of number of children, enrolment rates, numbers of qualified teachers, and learning outcomes (Bengtsson et al, 2017). While there are different definitions of children on the move, different legal frameworks that apply and theoretical frameworks through which provision of education for these groups is conceptualised, barriers that determine exclusion from education are often similar and pertain to displacement/mobility, marginalization, lack of certainty for children’s trajectories and futures, language, content and relevance of education, amongst others.

Traditional education provision has often fallen short to reach (or be appealing to) these children. The presentation will provide an opportunity to examine and reflect on innovative methodologies and strategies adopted by selected education projects and highlight some of the underlining questions and debates around these. These include: (i) what education would be relevant for these children, (ii) what specific set of skills would they need to navigate their extremely difficult environments, (iii) how can education ultimately contribute to developing behaviours that adapt to a changing environment and contribute to building resilient communities. The findings from this panel aim to inform programming, contribute to knowledge building and feed into policy dialogue and advocacy.

Author

• Farida Aboudan, Education Above All Foundation/Educate A Child