2011/ED/EFA/MRT/PI/10
Background paper prepared for the
Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2011
The hidden crisis: Armed conflict and education
Aiding education in conflict The role of international education providers
operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan
Adele Harmer, Abby Stoddard and Victoria DiDomenico
2010
This paper was commissioned by the Education for All Global Monitoring Report as background
information to assist in drafting the 2011 report. It has not been edited by the team. The views and
opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and should not be attributed to the EFA
Global Monitoring Report or to UNESCO. The papers can be cited with the following reference:
“Paper commissioned for the EFA Global Monitoring Report 2011, The hidden crisis: Armed conflict
and education”. For further information, please contact efareport@unesco.org.
Aiding education in conflict The role of international education providers operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan
Adele Harmer and Abby Stoddard, Humanitarian Outcomes Victoria DiDomenico, Center on International Cooperation
June 2010 Background paper produced for the 2011 Education for All Global Monitoring Report, produced by Humanitarian Outcomes for UNESCO 1
Contents Executive Summary ...................................................................................................................................... 3 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 3 1.1 Background and objectives of the research ..................................................................................... 4 1.2 Methodology.................................................................................................................................... 5 2. Insecurity for aid operations: Global trends and the particular cases of Afghanistan-Pakistan ............ 5 2.1 Global ‘hotspots’ in aid worker violence......................................................................................... 6 2.2 Attacks on aid operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan ................................................................... 6 3. Attacks against education ...................................................................................................................... 7 3.1 Limitations of the data ..................................................................................................................... 8 3.2 Analysis of violence against education............................................................................................ 8 4. Programming approaches – delivering education in highly insecure contexts .................................... 11 4.1 Traditional versus community-based approaches to education ..................................................... 11 4.2 Operational and security management approaches ........................................................................ 12 4.3 Limited access: operating by remote management ........................................................................ 14 5. Coordination, cluster leadership and resources ................................................................................... 16 5.1 Coordination and cluster leadership .............................................................................................. 16 5.2 Resources for education: comparative funding trends ................................................................... 18 6. Civil military dynamics ....................................................................................................................... 20 7. Conclusions ......................................................................................................................................... 22 Interviewee List ...................................................................................................................................... 24 References ............................................................................................................................................... 26 2
Executive Summary
Amid rising violence against civilian aid operations in high risk operational environments,
attacks on the education sector pose a unique set of challenges for international aid actors. In
recent years incidents of violence targeting the education sector in Afghanistan and the
conflict-affected areas of Pakistan have increased significantly, resulting in casualties as well
as further declines in access to education for children, particularly girls. The particular
conflict dimensions of the Afghanistan and Pakistan contexts, combined with the inescapable
political and cultural associations of education, speak to the need for focused analysis and
practical guidance for the education sector on how to manage risks while striving to retain a
much needed programming presence.
This background paper, prepared by Humanitarian Outcomes for the 2011 Education for All
Global Monitoring Report, synthesises recent research, quantitative analyses, and
observations of practitioners currently operating in the field and at headquarters - with a
particular focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan - in order to explore and highlight the key issues
that aid workers face working in the sector. Taken together, the overarching findings from
the evidence suggest that in extremely violent and polarised environments such as these,
education assistance can be more effectively and securely provided through a low-profile,
community based approach that deemphasizes the role of government, and avoids as far as
possible any association with international political/military actors. The tradeoffs this implies
for longer-term statebuilding, development and counter-insurgency objectives are justified by
the immediate gains of having children (safely) in school. The paper concludes further that a
much greater role could be played by the education cluster in terms of practical guidance in
implementing education projects in highly insecure environments and supporting an interagency dialogue in order to share lessons and good practice in delivering education services
in these contexts.
1. Introduction
In recent years, attacks against schools, teachers, and students have proliferated in some of
the world’s most challenging conflict environments, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, the
occupied Palestinian Territories, Nepal, and Colombia. Thanks in part to the significant
advocacy efforts of some key international entities with mandates to support education and
child protection, global awareness has been raised on the gravity of the situation, with new
initiatives to monitor attacks against schools in support of the United Nations Security
Council Resolution 1612 (July 2005). Much of the focus has centered, appropriately, on how
these attacks have impacted on the affected communities, the education sector, and national
and global education goals including the Education for All campaign and the Millennium
Development Goals. There has been limited analysis, however, on the practical aspects of
programme implementation. This paper focuses on the delivery of education assistance in the
midst of conflict and specifically on the role played by international aid providers in the field,
and the practical challenges, risks and opportunities they face.
3
The rationale for including emergency education as an integral component of a humanitarian
response is that it can provide stability and structure to communities in disarray, enhance
child protection, reduce psychosocial damage, and enable the work of other sectors by
providing a facility for other aid activities and community outreach to take place (Stoddard et
al, 2007). Its acceptance as a humanitarian sector, however, is by no means universal, either
among donor governments or aid agencies. This is partly due to a general argument about the
need to prioritise ‘life-saving’ activities such as food, water, and medical support in
emergency response. Other sectors, such as education and agriculture are often considered
more developmental in nature and not appropriate to include as a part of a front-line
intervention. This is increasingly the case in highly insecure contexts where ‘programme
criticality’ (which involves determining which programmes are the most critical in a given
part of a country (in terms of saving lives or requiring immediate delivery) and warrant
accepting a greater level of risk/ or a greater allocation of resources to mitigate these risks ),
is considered against the resources available for delivering activities safely and securely.
The other, broader but related, issue is that education is seen as a patently political activity,
and as an extension of the state’s authority throughout a given country. Aid agencies involved
in education, therefore, can be potentially perceived as supporting the agenda of political
actors in an exercise of state-building. In contexts where states and international forces are
party to the conflict this dynamic is highly problematic. The way in which aid agencies
navigate this complex environment, and the extent to which they are themselves caught up in
violence, is the subject of this paper. Centered on the case examples of Afghanistan and
Pakistan, it focuses on how agencies maintain access to beneficiaries and effectively deliver
education services in increasingly insecure and internationalised conflict settings, where
coordination mechanisms and the resources for security and programme delivery are
relatively weak.
1.1 Background and objectives of the research
The background paper was commissioned by UNESCO in support of the 2011 Education for
All Global Monitoring Report which will focus on how violent conflict affects education
goals and how education affects conflict. The objective of the research was to examine trends
in violence against aid workers with a focus on the education sector, with particular attention
to the conflict-affected areas of Afghanistan and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly NorthWest Frontier Province) and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in Pakistan.
The paper covers five broad areas: Section 2 examines the global trends in aid worker
insecurity and specific security issues in the insecure areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Section 3 analyses the data on attacks against education, and highlights some core findings
and themes. Section 4 discusses the programmatic and security management approaches that
agencies have adopted in order to maintain access and deliver education services in these
volatile contexts, including the use of low profile and remote management approaches.
Section 5 explores the role that sectoral coordination can play in enabling programming,
specifically as regards the newly established coordination mechanism in the education sector:
4
the cluster approach. It also analyses funding flows and coverage against stated needs to the
education sector and compares these against other sectors. Section 6 looks at the challenges
posed by military involvement in education assistance and Section 7 draws overall
conclusions.
1.2 Methodology
This desk-based study focused on the contexts of Afghanistan and Pakistan, but also drew
upon a knowledge base acquired over five years of research on humanitarian policy and
operational practice globally. The study used both qualitative and quantitative methods,
including analysing recent data on attacks on schools and drawing on data findings from
previous research on attacks against aid workers. The research also involved 27 telephone
interviews with government officials, international and local aid providers working in the
education sector in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as policy, operational and security staff
in headquarters. It should be noted that the Afghanistan and Pakistan contexts differ in terms
of the nature of the conflicts occurring, international and national political dynamics, and the
aid response, yet both countries have seen a documented rise in attacks against education
recently, and share some common features in terms of the threats faced. As such they offer
useful examples. The paper draws findings and illustrative lessons from them both, but does
not attempt to treat them as a single case study.
2. Insecurity for aid operations: Global trends and the particular cases of
Afghanistan-Pakistan
Violence against civilian aid operations is an important indicator of humanitarian access.
Although such violence occurs for many different reasons in different places, lethal attacks
against aid workers are the surest corollary of decreasing presence by international
humanitarians in any setting. Evacuations, programme suspensions, and contraction of
operations are directly related to incidents of major violence, and where there has been
widespread killing of aid workers, such as in Somalia, the international aid presence can
dwindle to near non-existent, irrespective of dire humanitarian needs.
The Aid Worker Security Database (AWSD)1 tracks major attacks against aid workers
globally, with statistics going back to 1997, and calculates the incidence rate of attacks
against the number of aid workers in the field. This section takes this global data as a starting
point for analysis before focusing in on the specific problem of education programming in
Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan.
1
The Aid Worker Security Database is a project of Humanitarian Outcomes. An extensive methodology
detailing definitions and parameters of the study is available at: www.aidworkersecurity.org or
http://www.humanitarianoutcomes.org/pdf/ProvidingAidinInsecureEnvironments-Full.pdf.
5
2.1 Global ‘hotspots’ in aid worker violence
Since the first year of recorded data from the AWSD, the rate of major attacks against aid
workers worldwide has been on upward trend. Beginning in the second half of the past
decade, however, that increase has been driven by a small number of extremely high risk
conflict environments. Since 2006, just six countries have accounted for nearly three quarters
of all such attacks worldwide: Somalia, Afghanistan, Sudan, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Chad.
Table 1: Reported major incidents of violence against aid workers 2000-2009
2000
2001 2002 2003
2004
Number of incidents
42
29
46
63
63
Total aid worker victims 91
90
85
143
125
Total killed
57
27
38
87
56
Total wounded
23
20
23
49
46
Total kidnapped
11
43
24
7
23
Source: Aid Worker Security Database (www.aidworkersecurity.org)
2005
75
172
54
95
23
2006
106
239
86
87
66
2007
119
208
78
84
46
2008
157
269
126
83
60
2009
137
276
100
85
91
When controlling for these extreme cases, the data indicate that violence against aid workers
in general is leveling off worldwide, and may in fact be declining. In a few of the high-risk
environments where it is surging, however, it has taken on an increasingly political - and antiWestern - orientation, and posing ever greater challenges to humanitarian organisations. The
heightened ‘politicisation’ of aid worker attacks is evidenced in both global and field-based
data. Analysis suggests a greater proportion of incidents perpetrated by armed opposition
groups (as opposed to opportunistic criminals) and with known political motives (Stoddard,
Harmer and DiDomenico, 2009).
‘Taking all [the] evidence together - a rising rate of attacks, concentrated in a small
number of highly contested political environments, and especially targeting
internationals - a pattern begins to emerge of increasingly politicised and
indiscriminate violence against aid workers and the international aid enterprise in
general.’ (Stoddard and Harmer, 2010, 2)
The most striking examples of this phenomenon are occurring in Afghanistan and Pakistan,
two intertwined and internationalised conflict settings.
2.2 Attacks on aid operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan
In the past four years, from 2006-2009, Afghanistan accounted for 28% of all major armed
attacks perpetrated against aid workers - second only to Somalia in terms of raw numbers.
Pakistan was marked by fewer separate incidents of violence, but showed the highest rate of
increase in such violence of any country over that same period, and its attacks were
characterised by higher than average levels of lethality and numbers of victims.2
In Afghanistan and Pakistan, aid organisations must navigate highly complex and challenging
operational environments. Together the two countries comprise the key theater for the USled global campaign against Al Qaeda and its nationally based allies engaging in
local/national level insurgencies (primarily emanating from the Pashtun region that spans
2
Aid Worker Security Database, see: www.aidworkersecurity.org.
6
southern Afghanistan and the northwestern borderlands of Pakistan). Needs among the
populations across the two countries range from emergency humanitarian relief to recovery to
development assistance. The authorities in Kabul and Islamabad have a vital interest to be
seen as supporting/leading the assistance efforts. So too does the US-led Coalition, whose
members comprise some of the major international donors footing the bill for the aid
response.
In Afghanistan in particular, assistance to local populations has been a key element of the
Coalition’s counterinsurgency campaign in the provinces, with their Provincial
Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) serving as a vehicle for aid delivery and reconstruction
assistance within a security and stabilisation strategy. When the PRT concept was first
introduced, the humanitarian community was quick to protest that the more appropriate role
for the military would be to provide security to enable neutral humanitarian assistance to take
place, and admonished that PRTs and other military aid projects created potentially
dangerous associations between humanitarian and political/military actors (Gordon, 2006).
The PRT model continued nevertheless, and some aid organisations ended up working in
collaboration or at least coordination with these units.3 In Pakistan, the national government
is using the army to maintain control over aid activities in the volatile North-West Frontier
Province abutting Afghanistan, recently renamed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, including providing
military and police security support. The UN Humanitarian Coordinator and country team
continue to strike a difficult balance in complying with the government’s wishes and
pursuing independent humanitarian objectives. UN staff also note that the Pakistani military
has a national mandate to help provide and coordinate relief assistance.4 NGO interviewees
operating in the region express frustration at the government’s restrictions on their
movements and activities, as well as the UN’s compliance, and stress the importance of
operating independently of the government’s security apparatus, which they see as a party to
the conflict.5
In Afghanistan, and it seems increasingly in northwestern Pakistan, some armed opposition
groups view the aid organisations and projects as part of the Western political and military
agenda. More than just convenient ‘soft’ or proxy targets they are seen as legitimate enemy
targets. Even those aid agencies that scrupulously avoid collaborating with military or
political entities, and reject funding support from governments associated with the Coalition,
have experienced threats or violence that suggest they are not perceived as neutral.
3. Attacks against education
Against this backdrop, aid programming in the education sector stands out as particularly
challenged. While progress was made and continues to be made in education in some
provinces, overall the early gains in primary school enrollment for both boys and girls in
3
Interviews, 2010.
Interviews, 2010.
5
Interviews, 2010.
4
7
Afghanistan from the start of the 2002 aid response through 2006 were not able to be
sustained amid increasing violence and instability in later years, including attacks specifically
targeted at schools, teachers, and students. Education programming must not only contend
with the general atmosphere of insecurity caused by the conflict, but also the religious and
cultural mindset of some of these groups that is hostile to modern secular education in
general and to education of females in particular, as well as some violence perpetrated by
criminal gangs. A similar situation developed in Pakistan as the Taliban’s influence grew in
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from 2007.
3.1 Limitations of the data
The data on attacks against education programming are intriguing but incomplete. Beyond
providing contextual information, the AWSD global dataset is by itself insufficient to analyse
education attacks, since it monitors attacks on aid workers, not programmes or projects, per
se. It therefore cannot track attacks on school facilities, for instance arson (the majority of
incidents affecting education programming6), in which no aid personnel were seriously
injured or killed. It may also miss attacks that are education-related if the reports on the
incident did not mention that the target or context of the attack was educational
programming, and would not capture incidents of violence against the civilian and
government workers working in the school system (unless they were directly involved in an
aid organisation’s programme) or the students themselves.
Recently there have been a few notable efforts to collect and analyse data on educationrelated attacks undertaken by field practitioners in Afghanistan.7 A study conducted by
CARE on behalf of the World Bank and the Afghan Ministry of Education called Knowledge
on Fire: Attacks on Education in Afghanistan (Glad, 2009), analysed two existing datasets
(UNICEF’s and the Education Ministry’s) on security incidents affecting schools and
education programmes. The report stands as the most comprehensive exposition on the
subject to date, while at the same time cautioning that its analysis is constrained by the data
ambiguities and gaps. For one, the parameters of the two datasets did not completely align,
and in some instances inaccuracies and double counting were suspected. In addition - and
understandably due to insecure conditions - the supplementary field surveying and focus
group consultations were able to take place in just eight out of thirty-four provinces, all in the
relatively more secure North and East of the country (and was limited further in those places
to areas the team could comfortably access, preventing randomisation and comparable
sampling). For these reasons, and the fact that survey information yielded a wide variation in
circumstances and perceptions surrounding the attacks from province to province, the report
was circumspect in making conclusions about motives and risk factors for school attacks.
3.2 Analysis of violence against education Data limitations aside, the CARE Afghanistan report was able to cite a few significant overall
findings, consistent with anecdotal evidence, including:
6
According UNICEF figures, cited in the CARE Afghanistan report Knowledge on Fire (Glad 2009, 2).
The first of which was published in 2006 by Human Rights Watch, titled Lessons in Terror: Attacks on
Education in Afghanistan.
7
8
•
•
•
Girls’ schools were targeted at a higher rate than boys’ and mixed gender schools.
Schools identified with the government and with the PRTs were attacked more
frequently than the community based education programmes.
Schools/education programmes that were owned and driven by the local community
from the outset fared considerably better than externally developed initiatives with
limited community buy-in.
The numbers that can be cited in the Afghanistan context, all caveats considered, are grim. In
total, the CARE report counts 230 people killed as a result of education-related attacks in
Afghanistan during 2006-2008. The total number of individual security incidents in that
period (ranging from simple threats to armed violence and major destruction) was estimated
at 1,153 (Glad 2009, 2). The government data show an increasing trend of violence against
education over time, with killings doubling from 2008 to 2009 (Glad 2009, 6). The resulting
access constraints have been dramatic: “[in 2009] 651 schools were closed in southern
provinces; 141 teachers and students were killed since the beginning of the year; and 173,000
students dropped out off schools, a spokesman for the Ministry of Education said at the end
of 2008. In some southern provinces as many as 81% of schools are closed.”(ibid.) There are
still fewer hard numbers for education attacks in Pakistan, though some numbers emerge
piecemeal. Between 2007 and March 2009 in the Swat District in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 172
schools were destroyed or damaged by the Taliban. Most were burnt down by Taliban
militants; others were shelled, blasted, demolished or ransacked, leaving 108 schools fully
destroyed and 64 schools partially damaged (UNESCO, 2010).8
Other reports and interagency platforms in the education sector have repeated calls for
additional research efforts to improve the evidence base. Until field-level data gathering can
be expanded in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the existing data sets rationalised, there is not
much more that can be done in terms of a rigorous quantitative analysis. This is not to say,
however, that certain issues cannot be identified. Interviewees, echoing the caution of written
reports on the subject, were hesitant to draw overall conclusions as to education as being
inherently more political, and hence facing greater or distinct risks as compared with other
types of programming or facilities. The data that is available are unable to support this
conclusively, and many respondents cited the large number of attacks on health clinics, and
on the National Solidarity Programme in Afghanistan, as a sign that education is no more or
less at risk than any other type of programming.9 However, there are three features of
education programming, the first of which it shares with health care, that arguably can create
special vulnerabilities or risk factors:
8
The number of schools affected varies widely in reports. A report by the government of Pakistan suggested
numbers were as high as 356 schools (IRIN, 2009). An interviewee cited other figures from a recent OCHA
mission which highlighted that 393 schools were destroyed in Swat of which 169 were completely destroyed
(147 were girls schools) and 224 partially damaged.
9
The National Solidarity Programme was created in 2003 to develop the ability of Afghan communities to
identify, plan, manage, and monitor their own development projects through the promotion of good local
governance.
9
Schools as visible, physical target
Education represents not only project activities, but often also physical facilities - schools that can serve as potent symbols and as concrete sites for multiple activities and uses. The
visibility of schools, and their widespread grassroots presence across the country including
remote rural areas, is likely a large part of the explanation for why they are relatively easy
targets for violence While anti-government elements have a number of potential targets such
as police check points, district offices, clinics, etc., schools are often vacant and unguarded
for a portion of the day and in the evening allowing for minimal risk to the perpetrator as well
as minimal collateral damage.
Schools as political target of opportunity
The rationale frequently cited for including emergency education as part of the frontline
humanitarian response to emergencies is that such programmes not only promote normalcy
and stability in a chaotic situation, but can serve also to protect children. School facilities in
particular, as natural community hubs, can be the entry and delivery point for other
humanitarian interventions such as school feeding programmes, health services, public health
and hygiene messages, and distribution of aid commodities. In doing so, they may become
tangible symbols of recovery and normalcy. In places where education programming is a
political flashpoint, however, the converse may also be true: a school that is built by the
government or a foreign intervening force (such as the PRTs in Afghanistan) or used as a
base by military forces (as in Pakistan) will potentially be seen by insurgents as legitimate
enemy targets. The CARE Afghanistan report that found that government and PRT initiated
schools were more frequent targets of attack could not say conclusively whether this was
because they were more visible and softer targets to hit or specifically because of the political
imprimatur, but both must be considered as reasonable possible explanations and potential
risk factors.
Education as uniquely threatening to religious, cultural and gender norms
Given the highly insecure context and numerous motivations for attacks across a number of
actors it is possible to a delineate trends. Not only have single sex girls’ schools, and female
students, been among the most frequently targeted, the perpetrators in the attacks on girls
schools were found more likely to be identified as armed opposition groups (insurgents) than
criminal elements, such as narco-traffickers or other organised crime groups that may seek to
control territory or population through fear (Glad 2009, ANSO 2009).
It is a paradox of the region that education is the most widely expressed need and desire
among local communities surveyed, yet at the same time remains one of the most targeted by
insurgent violence. In insecure areas where this violence is occurring, the question arises
whether education is an appropriate focus area for international humanitarian aid efforts.
Leaving aside the persuasive arguments for why emergency education deserves to be
included among the frontline humanitarian response activities, it is considered that unlike
medicine, food or water, education assistance does not meet physical human need; nor is it a
practical livelihood support. Rather, it represents a state-building measure; an investment in
future society strengthening and human capacity. To those that oppose it, education in
10
general can represent an unwelcome advance of modernity and alien culture, particularly in
the case of girls’ education.10 Moreover, schooling has long been a cultural battleground in
Afghanistan, going back to the Mujahadeen insurgency under Soviet occupation when
education was seen as a way to advance communist ideology and political agenda (Glad,
2009, 7). The Afghan Ministry of Education is keenly aware of the historical legacy on
public perceptions, and that many Afghan communities distrust the government’s role in
education for that reason. It therefore seeks to increase community involvement in schooling
projects and to minimize or downplay the involvement of PRTs.11
The field of humanitarian operational security management holds that it is best practice for
aid agencies to assess not only the external threats in their environment, but the
vulnerabilities or ‘self generated threats’ that derive from the type of programming they are
undertaking. In the case of education programming, it does not serve any objective to deny
that education is uniquely charged and challenged in such polarised political contexts, and
that aid organisations undertaking it must be aware of the risks and how to mitigate them for
their beneficiaries, local partners and staff.
4. Programming approaches – delivering education in highly insecure
contexts Faced with what may be one of the most difficult and risky programming areas to work in,
and coupled with the general violence occurring in parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan, aid
agencies have had to develop innovative approaches to maintain education operations in these
contexts. Even so, there are considerable and growing challenges to working in the education
sector, not the least to the local staff and communities who take on significant risk to sustain
the programmes. This section analyses the programming and security management
approaches of agencies undertaking education work in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
4.1 Traditional versus community-based approaches to education
Most aid agencies working in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the sector of education have had to
chart a difficult course in determining the type of education programming that they can
effectively support. The governments in both countries want to see resources directed
towards official schools to fulfill the fundamental state service of providing for the
educational needs of the people as well as to reinforce an image of order and authority. The
PRTs and the Pakistani Army likewise both strive in their respective operations to cultivate
good will toward their presence and their efforts on the part of the government as a key
element of a counterinsurgency strategy. Hence one part of the ‘hearts and minds’ work, is
providing official schools. Additionally, many parents see the benefit of having their children
at government schools so that their education will be officially recognised and certified.
10
For a detailed discussion on the topic of girls education see: Jehanzaib Khan, 2010. “Tradition versus
Religion: Masculinity in Pashtunwali and the Moderating Role of Education,” Unpublished paper presented at
the 2010 Comparative International Education Society Conference in Chicago.
11
Interview, 2010.
11
However, when the level of threat has reached a high likelihood of violent attacks on official
schools, education programming must adapt to what can be achieved securely, at least in the
short term. As a result, community-based schools have been prioritised by many NGOs
working in the sector in Afghanistan.12 The Afghan Ministry of Education itself has
supported some community based education programmes - in private homes and mosques - in
some more difficult areas.13 In Pakistan, there are examples of ‘satellite’ schools being
established by NGOs in the Khyber Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as an alternate to the rebuilding of
the government schools destroyed by the Taliban.
Community-based schools are not a new model in Afghanistan. These have existed for over
60 years, and were mainly developed out of a preference to have schools close to villages
(Burde, 2010). INGOs started developing them as far back as 1980, and later during the
period of Taliban rule in the late 1990s as a way of dealing with the absence of a state system
for education and in particular, due to the resistance to female education. The model has
some advantages in highly insecure contexts in that it avoids significant infrastructure
investment (no school buildings) and instead space is provided in a home or mosque. A
teacher is often identified from the community and support is provided by school
management committees. It is primarily a community driven approach. The project
maintenance involves re-supplying textbooks and stationery to the schools, and providing ongoing training for the teachers and education committees. The schools are typically managed
by local staff employed by international aid organisations, but, as noted, the government also
supports some community-based schools. According to UNICEF, which supported the initial
start-up, there are over 3000 Government owned community based schools today.
4.2 Operational and security management approaches
NGO programming of the community-based model is both an exercise in operational risk
management and a civilian protection activity. It could also be argued that in these contexts,
security for education is directly related to the amount of local community involvement and,
in places where the power dynamics have shifted to insurgents, inversely related to the level
of visible international (and government) involvement.
The bedrock of an operational security strategy for many international and local NGOs and
for the International Red Cross/Red Crescent movement is that of acceptance (HPN, 2010).
An acceptance approach attempts to reduce or remove threats by increasing the acceptance
(the political and social ‘consent’) of an agency’s presence and its work in a particular
context. Interviewees note that the community-based education model, by its very nature,
relies heavily on an acceptance. Ensuring there is broad community consent and support for
the school is the pivotal aspect of the approach’s success. As one interviewee noted: ‘if the
12
According to Burde and Linden (2010) government schools serve as the principal source of education for
Afghan children: approximately 95 percent of the roughly 6 million registered students attend government
schools; approximately 1.5 percent attend Islamic schools (government registered madrassas); and close to 3
percent attend community-based schools. These figures are based on a Ministry of Education School survey in
2007.
13
Interview, 2010.
12
school is perceived to have been built and wanted by the community, as opposed to being
forced upon them, then it’s got a good likelihood of being sustainable’. This level of
community engagement potentially allows for advance warning of the likelihood of attacks
and if necessary, programming shifts to adapt to the volatile security conditions. The
acceptance model, however, is just the starting position. It alone is not enough to keep
beneficiaries and staff secure.
The NGOs who are currently able to successfully implement community-based education
programs in Afghanistan and in the contested areas of Pakistan are primarily doing so in a
low-profile way. A low profile (or low visibility) approach is an equally important risk
reduction measure. It involves removing organisational branding from office buildings,
vehicles, residences and individual staff members, particularly outside of the capital. It also
involves utilising private cars, particularly vehicles that blend into the local context, such as
taxis, limiting movement and removing tell-tale pieces of equipment, such as VHF radios or
satellite phones and HF antennae. In Afghanistan and Pakistan there are additional low
profile measures, particularly for travel because for the most part agencies can only rely on
secure guarantees from the areas within which they are working, not those they are travelling
through. Expatriates rarely travel to the project sites and any national staff likely to stand out
from the local population may also be redeployed. As one interviewee noted the ‘local face’
is imperative: ‘If you’re not from the area you’re the first one to be targeted’. Agencies are
heavily reliant on their local staff to undertake much of the programme management. For
their part, local staff will sanitise anything that might link them to their employer, for
example, memory sticks, agency identity documents or forms and computers and they travel
without any foreign name in their cell phones. Trainers or monitors often travel to a
classroom or school in rented vehicles (which are regularly switched so as not to always have
the same car) or local taxis. They may also have a ‘cover story’ as to what they do and where
and why they are travelling. Further contact will be made with the local school management
committee members in advance to confirm if travel is appropriate on a given day, and school
materials will be sent by public transport in advance.
Local communities have taken other decisions regarding the security of school children and
their schools. Concerned that government transportation might increase their vulnerability,
for example, parents in some communities of the southeast of Afghanistan contribute towards
a local bus to transport children. The school management also appoints security
commissioners who are responsible for the security of their school, including conducting
night patrols. This raises the community awareness of security issues.
Most aid agencies maintain that the use of armed force to protect their operations is not an
option in Afghanistan or Pakistan. In some contexts, however, it does occur. One
interviewee working for an organisation that supports the Afghan government’s tertiary
education system noted that the organisation relies on armed protection for international staff
during monitoring and evaluation exercises. A private security company provides close
protection teams as well as shadow protection teams to staff who travel to and from the
airport in Herat in armoured vehicles. Juxtaposed against a community-based approach, the
contrast in operational models is quite striking. Many humanitarian security professionals
13
have attested that while a deterrent force arrangement may provide security in the short term,
such an aggressive posture can also backfire in some cases by inviting attention from
belligerents. In the long term, moreover, it can create more security problems for the
organisation by sowing distrust and generally distancing the organisation from the
community.
A growing dilemma for aid organisations undertaking community-based or satellite schools is
the extent to which these will be integrated into the national education system, under the
auspices of the Ministry of Education. In Afghanistan, most NGOs state that this was the
goal from 2006 when the Afghan Ministry of Education developed a policy on community
based education. As a result, the NGOs have worked with the Ministry to ensure community
based schools reflect the education curricula, supply education department text books and
attempt to include community-based school teachers on the Ministry’s teacher payroll,
subject to certain credentialing requirements (Burde and Linden, 2010). Most recently,
however, as insecurity has increased so too has concern around how much NGOs should be
collaborating on the government’s education approach, and at what cost. Do they want, for
example, to be part of the government’s monitoring exercises and risk raising the profile and
connecting their schools to government policy? For their part, some in the Afghan
government see an INGO community that seems to push ahead with its own programming
objectives without sufficient consultation and collaboration with the government, and without
due regard for the Ministry’s plans and priorities. This speaks to the challenge for NGOs
undertaking education work in such highly polarised conflicts. A significant means of
ensuring access and operational security – and ultimately, therefore, the project’s success relies on the ability to be perceived as neutral and impartial, and yet the sector of education,
perhaps more than others, is perceived as both an extension of the state and reflective the
broader political and cultural goals of an international enterprise. As security continues to
deteriorate, so do the prospects for reconciling the goals of remaining neutral and yet also
supporting state-led education priorities. There may, however, be some room for agreement
between international aid organisations and the government on certain specific locations that
call for CBE models, a low profile for government involvement, and a lack of association
with foreign forces.
4.3 Limited access: operating by remote management
There are additional challenges posed by the programmatic approaches in Afghanistan and
Pakistan. First, there is the challenge of ensuring programmatic quality when the
international staff who often have formal responsibility for managing the implementation of
the education programmes, have very little, if any, engagement at the field level. Second,
most agencies recognise a process of risk transfer is taking place. These issues have
increasingly been seen as part of a programming adaptation called remote management.
Remote management programming is defined as a situation where an international
organisation has had to significantly alter normal ways of working due to insecurity
(Stoddard, Harmer and Renouf, 2010). It is primarily a reactive, unplanned position due to
deteriorating security conditions and involves withdrawing or drastically reducing
international and sometimes national personnel from the field, transferring greater
14
programme responsibility to local staff or local partner organisations, and overseeing
activities from a different location. It is a practice that is occurring with increasing frequency
in insecure contexts, including in northwest Pakistan and Afghanistan as access has
deteriorated. Afghanistan has seen a dramatic shrinking of the humanitarian footprint in
recent years due to insecurity. According to the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office (ANSO)
more than half of the country’s thirty-four provinces are now ‘no-go’ areas for international
aid workers (ANSO, 2009). As a result, roughly two-thirds of the international NGOs in
Afghanistan are implementing projects remotely, through either local staff or local partners
(Stoddard, Harmer and Renouf, 2010). Agencies in Pakistan also face access challenges in
the northwest, in particular the UN agencies are restricted by a security level which formally
prohibits other than essential, life-saving work to be undertaken.
Previous research in this area has found that the decision to undertake remote management—
as opposed to suspending aid operations completely—involves a number of considerations,
including the criticality of the programme (whether it involves life-saving work), the
amenability of the activities/sector to weaker levels of technical oversight and (possibly)
expertise, and the availability of current or potential local partners (Stoddard, Harmer and
Renouf, 2010). Some sectors lend themselves more to the practice of remote management
than others – and despite the fact that education is not perceived as a life saving intervention,
it is considered to be a sector in which remote management can be adequately maintained.
This is perhaps dependent on the fact that the education model aid agencies are supporting is
a local, community-driven one.
Very few expatriates visit the project sites in the most insecure areas of Afghanistan and
Pakistan, a precaution commonly considered as a protective measure for the international
staff, the local staff and the community alike. Most responsibility for the day to day running
of the schools is transferred to local staff and the school management committees. There is,
as a result, very little interaction between those involved in the running of the school and
official project implementers, the NGOs. It results in there being challenges both in the
monitoring and the quality control of the projects and in ensuring aid effectiveness. As one
interviewee noted:
‘We didn’t just want to know the school had been set up – we wanted to know that
there was teaching going on. We had a lot of discussion about what was acceptable
quality. At some point all our local staff could do was visit the villages and count the
number of kids in a class. How much of a support is this?’
Some NGOs, including CARE, Save the Children and the International Rescue Committee,
have attempted to adapt their practices to address this. Technical options include having
photographs taken of school sites and school activities, and having teachers travel to safer
locations, for example, for training. For distribution, community members would be
requested to pick up books from safer locations and then return to the village to distribute
them. If decision making had been devolved to a very local level there was an emphasis on
making sure the field managers had information to undertake the risk analysis and have the
authority to make decisions. One agency determined that given their biggest challenge was
15
traveling, it was best to establish a permanent local monitor with the community and for site
visits to be conducted less regularly, once every six months. In some contexts, monitoring
US funds involves utilising third party private monitors.
During interviews for this study most agencies recognised, however, that remote management
involves a process of risk transfer: the risk of targeting is now borne by the local aid workers
and community members. Most NGOs stress that this empowers these actors to make
decisions based on their own risk assessment. They would not be asked to travel, for
example, if they did not feel safe. But they also recognise that economic drivers – such that
this might be the only opportunity for local staff to have employment - sways the thinking of
local staff in terms of the risk they are prepared to face. Another line of reasoning is that by
devolving responsibility to local staff or contracting out to local NGOs it offers the
opportunity to increase indigenous management and technical capacities within the education
sector. Capacity development is recognised as an important goal, particularly within the
education sector, but in Afghanistan for example, most NGOs questioned whether this was
possible and realistic. One NGO noted that they had “held off contracting to local NGOs
precisely because we think it’s not fair to put that risk on them at a time when we know we
can’t adequately build their capacity”. In Pakistan, NGOs had more positive experience of
capacity building, and this was partly put down to the already established expertise of local
staff.
Remote management often brings agencies to the point of asking: Why are we still doing
this? When do we stop? One NGO noted that the threshold is ‘pretty fluid’ in terms of the
risks they will consider operating with. Another question is that of when, if ever, will it be
safe to return? Part of the challenge in remote management approaches is that the now-distant
international staff loses familiarity with the field setting, potentially skewing perceptions of
insecurity and often an organisational conservatism sets in regarding expatriate staff
movement. It is, however, still easier for agencies to return from a situation of remote
management than from complete programme suspension (Stoddard, Harmer and Renouf,
2010).
5. Coordination, cluster leadership and resources
Two major factors in the effectiveness of education programming in high risk environments
are the role of the Emergency Education Cluster, and the level of resourcing the sector
receives against stated needs.
5.1 Coordination and cluster leadership
The establishment of the ‘cluster’ approach in late 2005 introduced a more predictable and
accountable means of humanitarian coordination by formalising the lead role among
particular agencies and organisations in each sector (Stoddard et al, 2007). The education
sector however, was a latecomer to the cluster approach, partly because at the time it was not
considered amongst the life saving interventions that the initial model was intended to
16
address. Emergency Education earned a place at the table as an official cluster in late 2006,
co-chaired by UNICEF and Save the Children (the only cluster which is co-chaired, at the
global level, by an NGO). The cluster drew heavily from the already established InterAgency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE), which had produced Minimum
Standards for Education in Emergencies, Chronic Crises and Early Reconstruction in 2004.
At the field level, cluster lead agencies are, in theory, responsible not only for the
performance of their own programme but also for the entire sectoral response. While this is a
welcome and radical departure from previous models of coordination, it becomes somewhat
problematic in highly insecure contexts if the cluster lead agency has a limited field presence.
It has also been noted that leadership in the education cluster can be challenging given it
represents two very different organisational cultures which are hard to merge (Stoddard et al,
2007). In the contexts of Afghanistan and Pakistan, UNICEF for the most part supports the
Ministry of Education and its main role is to help the government achieve its objectives. Its
programmatic goals are therefore different to that of the rest of the agencies in the sector.
Agencies note that this poses challenges to an effective cluster leadership.
In Afghanistan, the cluster was established in 2008. Interviewees note that the cluster has
struggled to make an impact, particularly outside the capital of Kabul, because of a weak
presence and coordination capacity at the sub-national level. In Pakistan, interviewees
highlight that there is some tension regarding access to resources within the cluster. NGOs
have drawn attention to the fact that UNICEF has received the lion’s share of the resources
and that most has been spent through government channels. According to NGOs, this has
resulted primarily in investments the hardware for education (infrastructure and supplies) but
much less in the soft-skills of investing in teacher training and improving the quality of
education services. As one interviewee noted, “you’re not going to get a quality school on
the basis of lots of emergency education kits”. The challenges posed by the role the
government and the Pakistani military has played in education, is discussed in Section 6.
Until recently, security management approaches to implementing sector activities (such as
undertaking a collective risk assessment for the sector or assessing the issue of risk transfer to
partners) have not been considered a part of the cluster lead’s responsibilities. Interviewees
note that security is still largely dealt with at the agency level, not cluster wide and is not part
of the education cluster leads thinking. This is not unique to the education cluster – previous
research suggests this is a challenge for all cluster leads.14 The gravity of this challenge for
the education cluster however is significant. As one interviewee noted, it “marks a maturity
for our sector. For years we just wanted to get our foot in the door of emergency response.
Now we need to deal with serious security risks and think more critically about our advocacy
and strengthen our programming to take into account potential risks”. Whilst it might seem
14
In a previous study, UNICEF and UNHCR headquarters interviewees stressed that the issue was of concern
and that they were seeking to develop lessons learned from the field to inform future practice. These included
looking at specific programming challenges and the need to break programmes down into operational activities
such as design, delivery, and monitoring in terms of criticality and prioritization (Stoddard, Harmer and Renouf,
2010).
17
appropriate that the cluster lead takes on the role of facilitating the sector to function both
effectively and securely, members of the education cluster expressed some skepticism about
achieving much through an inter-agency mechanism at this stage. Recent training for cluster
coordinators from Afghanistan and Pakistan addressed issues of security at the sub-national
level and how restrictions of movement might affect the sector. It is too early to assess the
extent to which this will have an impact in the field.
At the global level, awareness has been raised on the need to protect education from attack
(HRW, 2006; UNESCO, 2009), but the discourse has tended to emphasise advocacy and
international legal principles. These, while undeniably important, do not get immediate
traction in active conflict situations. The global community in the sector has not yet dealt
practically with the protection aspect of education, much less how to manage security risks to
students and staff in some contexts. More than one interviewee remarked that protecting
schools and students from targeted attacks seems to have fallen through the cracks in the
international cluster system: it is appropriately the realm of emergency education or of
civilian protection? Interviewees also note that there are additional challenges for cluster
leads in pursuing advocacy, given that cluster lead agencies are juggling their ability to work
with authorities to maintain access for programmes and at the same time to monitor and
speak out against attacks which are often a reflection of how contested government policy is
and its ability to provide security. One possible option being considered is to encourage the
protection cluster to undertake the monitoring of attacks, which would free up the education
cluster and its agencies to carry out the programmatic work. This requires however a degree
of inter-cluster coordination that has thus far, not proven easy to undertake.
5.2 Resources for education: comparative funding trends
An often repeated claim of emergency education staff is that of limited resources as
compared other sectors in an emergency response (UNICEF, 2009). In the years since the
institutional reforms and new financing mechanisms were initiated in humanitarian
assistance, overall donor funding and coverage of needs has improved. Funding data from
2005-2009 show that every humanitarian sector, with the exception of safety and security,
has seen increases in both overall funding and in the percentage of requirements (as stated in
consolidated appeals) being covered.
The emergency education sector, perhaps reflecting its newcomer status as a humanitarian
cluster, continues to receive the least amount of funding of any cluster in terms of actual
dollars (figure 1). More importantly, it comes in next to last place in terms of funding
coverage for stated requirements (figure 2) at the global level.
18
USD millions
Figure 1: Funding for consolidated appeals by sector, 2005-09 15
500 450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 ‐
Avg. funding 05‐09
374 202 195 185 172 139 123 Figure 2: Percentage of consolidated appeal funding against stated requirements, 2005-09
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Avg. funding coverage 05‐09
Such findings do not bode well for prospects for enhancing security and protection around
education programming, particularly when one considers that the two other sectors that might
have taken up some of this responsibility, namely Protection and Safety and Security, both
15
The data in this paper is compiled from OCHA’s Financial Tracking Service (FTS), 19 April 2010
19
fared even worse in terms of funding coverage (see figures 2 and 3). In fact, as noted above
Safety and Security was the only sector where funding coverage actually decreased in the
latter half of the decade.
Figure 3: Percentage of consolidated appeal funding against stated requirements, comparing
2001-04 and 2005-09
Average coverage of funding requirements
Watsan
Shelter/NFI
Safety & security
Protection/HR/RoL
Mine action
Health
Food
Education
Econ Rec and Infr.
Coordination/support
Agriculture
2001‐04
2005‐09
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Afghanistan however was an exception in this regard with the education sector in the 2009
CAP fully-funded by mid-year (UNICEF, 2009). There is also the possibility that in the
education sector and particularly in chronic crisis, funds are more likely to be channeled
directly to the affected state and possibly be coded as reconstruction or development
assistance, which might result in the humanitarian allocation appearing smaller than overall
support might have been. In Pakistan, for example, the US government has reportedly
allocated $30million for education through the authorities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. This is
partly due to a strategy to support Pakistani civilian entities rather than US private contractors
and international NGOs.16
6. Civil military dynamics
The conflict dynamics vary greatly in Pakistan and Afghanistan, however interviews with aid
personnel in both contexts suggest that the militarisation of aid delivery has added to the
insecurity of their operations, the community and the beneficiaries. In both cases the blurring
of lines between civilian and military actors is primarily due to a concerted “hearts and
16
A recent reported that the “Obama administration wants to steer away from so-called big box contractors… as
well as U.S.-based NGOS. The plan now is to funnel a lot of aid via local NGOs and directly through the
Pakistani civilian government. The hope is this approach will build local capacity.” Reuters (2010) Aid To
Pakistan Is Complicated Business For U.S., 23 May 2010.
20
minds” campaign to win community support and provide some level of force protection by
providing critical primary services as part of a broader stabilisation campaign. Within the
education sector, a favoured activity of military actors is the building or reconstruction of
highly visible government schools. This has been done with support from the Ministry of
Education in terms of where this construction occurs and the types of buildings needed. Aid
agencies argue that there has been too little thought to the security implications for the
communities these facilities are intended to serve, and question the general sustainability and
practicality of the projects.
In Afghanistan, the PRTs vary in terms of the extent and approach they take in delivering aid
and implementing reconstruction projects across the provinces. Some have been criticised
for purposefully adopting civilian clothing and vehicles to emulate the appearance of an
NGO. Others, however, have actively engaged with NGOs and even hired former NGO
staffers in part to better prioritise appropriate projects and develop better community led
models for reconstruction. Overall, however, most aid agencies cite concerns about the PRT
model, which has remained a fundamental feature of international engagement. In building
schools, the main concern agencies cite include the lack of community involvement, the
selected locations which do not take into account the distance students would have to travel
or whether known illicit activities were taking place nearby creating an unsafe environment
for the provision of education, and the resulting security issues including creating defacto
targets for anti-government or –Western actors (Glad, 2009). According to aid personnel
interviewed for this study, the PRT-built schools tended toward the opposite of the
community-driven model: large, ‘ostentatious and iconic’. Interviewees cited that PRTs
would hire local laborers to assist with projects without recognising that these locals were
now associated with the political agenda of the PRTs putting them at risk. Interviewees also
argued that the same risk is taken on by teachers and students attending the PRT built
schools. More recently it is noted that there has been an evolution in terms of PRTs
intentions with more of a focus on “do no harm” at least in theory and some evidence of
donors channeling project funding through the Afghanistan National Solidarity Program
whereby communities have a say in what projects are chosen and constructed by the military
forces. Some interviewees also noted that in south-east Afghanistan, where primarily US
military PRTs operate, are not otherwise being reached by civilian assistance mechanisms.
The situation in Pakistan poses different challenges. The national military has established a
strong role in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa response and other parts of the region, based on the
role it played in response to the South Asia earthquake in 2005. National militaries are often
important actors in natural disaster response and in the case of the large scale and devastating
earthquake, which required a logistical, infrastructure and engineering response capacity that
no civilian aid entity could have matched, it was never in dispute that the Pakistani army play
such a leading role. The situation in the northwest in 2009, however, is a very different one.
The army, involved in a violent counter-insurgency campaign, has asserted itself to both
monopolise the provision of security in the region and play a strong role in aid provision
(ODI, 2009). Recent reports and interviewees suggest that aid funding has flowed to the
military partly a result of weak government capacity, particularly in the education sector
21
(ibid). The implications of the militaries engagement in reconstructing schools has been
raised by aid personnel in interviews highlighting that this may add to extremist grievances
and increasing the possibility of those schools being attacked again. Agencies also agencies
note reluctance on the part of parents to send their children to these schools for fear of
reprisals. A recent report found that:
‘A resumption of services and the provision of health and education are central tenets
of the Pakistani government’s approach. …However, assistance is likely to prioritise
areas where militancy and extremism are most acute, contravening the principle of
aid provision on the basis of need…. Many agencies have expressed concerns about
the long-term implications of being seen to work with the military, and by extension
supporting the aims of the Pakistani state when it is a party to the conflict. Others
raised concerns about being associated too closely with international counterinsurgency or stabilisation efforts, stating that, in conflict-affected areas,
international assistance was already regarded as inextricably linked to Western
interests (‘you bomb our villages and then build hospitals’). (ODI, 2009)
Another challenge in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the use of education facilities for bases by the
military, which, under international law establishes that facility as a legitimate target.17
OCHA has established specific civil-military guidelines to manage the increasing military
engagement in aid efforts in the northwest, but the process is described by interviewees as
having been prolonged and difficult, with little guarantee of impact. 18
7. Conclusions
Aiding education in conflict is a complex and politically charged endeavour for aid workers.
Often associated with the state and the ‘state-building’ project, it can strain the ability of aid
workers to maintain the perception of neutrality and impartiality. More importantly,
however, it is also a potentially dangerous endeavour, particularly in contexts where
extremist groups are conducting systematic attacks against school infrastructure, teachers and
students. This trend of violence against education has been identified in Afghanistan over the
past five years and in Pakistan for the past two. It comes at a time where both Afghanistan
17
The Geneva Conventions of 1949, Additional Protocol 1977, Article 52, ‘General protection of civilian
objects’ states ‘Attacks shall be limited strictly to military objectives. In so far as objects are concerned, military
objectives are limited to those objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective
contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the
circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.’ It goes on to say that ‘ In case of doubt
whether an object which is normally dedicated to civilian purposes, such as a place of worship, a house or other
dwelling or a school, is being used to make an effective contribution to military action, it shall be presumed not
to be so used.’ However this implies, conversely, that in a clear case where the military is making obvious use
of the facility, it is therefore a legitimate military target.
18
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/SNAA-86A9UG?OpenDocument&clickid=headlines
22
and Pakistan have witnessed rising numbers of attacks against aid workers generally. Whilst
the current evidence base may not be sufficient to positively conclude that aid workers
delivering education are more vulnerable to attack than those delivering other basic social
services such as health, it is clearly a sector which faces significant and distinctive risk.
In both Afghanistan and Pakistan aid agencies have adopted some innovative programmatic
and security risk management approaches. These include investing in low profile,
community based education as means of both ensuring the acceptance of the aid agency’s
staff but also to protect the school and its beneficiaries. The acceptance approach to security
management would appear to be vital in education programming in these particular risk
environments. There is also a significant reliance on local staff in the delivery of operations
with many programmes being managed remotely by international staff. Such practices have
implications in terms of the ability to monitor and ensure quality programmes, and the ability
to build the capacity of local actors, as well as ensuring their security. Whilst there have been
attempts to stand apart from the military engagement in the building and reconstruction of
schools, the role the military has played has inevitably made operational practices and the
need for greater investments in advocacy more demanding. In addition, the low level of
resourcing for emergency education in some contexts as compared to other sectors, and
relative to stated requirements, poses additional challenges for enhancing security and
protection around education programming.
There is also a wider issue that this research has identified about how the sector operates
collectively. Security risk management has historically always been undertaken at the agency
level or at the inter-agency level where there are shared geographical interests, but it has been
less effectively taken up at the sectoral level. It would seem there might be considerable
benefits, however, to greater engagement from the cluster on the issue of education
programming in highly insecure contexts. Particularly so that the risks of operating in this
sector are collectively realised and that good practice and lessons from innovative approaches
can be better shared. At present it seems there is a considerable opportunity for the education
cluster to invest in guidance as to how education programming in high risk environments
might be more effectively and securely managed – both for the students and staff, and for the
wider protection efforts that the sector has the ability to influence.
23
Interviewee List Anita Anastacio, Senior Technical Adviser, Education, International Rescue Committee, New
York
Sippi Azarbaijani-Moghaddam, Cultural Advisor to ISAF Regional Command South,
Afghanistan
Zahir Azizi, Aga Khan Development Network, Afghanistan
Dana Burde, Assistant Professor, International Education Program, Department of
Humanities and Social Sciences Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human
Development New York University
Erum Burki, Education Cluster Coordinator, Save the Children, Pakistan
Zama Coursen-Neff, Deputy Director, Children’s Rights Division, Human Rights Watch,
New York
Ciarán Donnelly, Regional Director, International Rescue Committee, D.R. Congo
John Ekaju, Education Specialist, Emergency, UNICEF, Afghanistan
Anders Fänge, Country Director, Swedish Committee for Afghanistan
Maria Agnese Giordano, Education in Emergencies and Post-Crisis Transition, UNICEF
Evaluation
Marit Glad, Policy and Advocacy Adviser, International Rescue Committee, D.R. Congo
Tom Gregg, Senior Program Coordinator and Fellow, Afghanistan Regional Project, Center
on International Cooperation, New York University
Marian Hodgkin, Coordinator for Network Services, Inter-Agency Network for Education in
Emergencies, Geneva
Fida Hussein Chang, Ph D Scholar, College of Education, Michigan State University
Ellen van Kalmthout, Senior Education in Emergencies Advisor, UNICEF, New York
Calister Mtalo, Education Specialist, UNICEF, Afghanistan
Susan Nicolai, Co-Lead IASC Education Cluster, Save the Children
Rachel Reid, Researcher, Asia Division, Human Rights Watch, Afghanistan
Jennifer Rowell, Advocacy Coordinator, CARE International, Afghanistan
Norman Sheehan, Security Director, AED
David Skinner, Country Director, Save the Children, Afghanistan
24
Christopher Talbot, CEO, Education Above All, Qatar
Salwa El Tibi, Gaza Program Manager, Save the Children UK, Gaza
Attaullah Wahidyar, Senior Policy Programme Advisor and Chief of Staff, Afghanistan
Ministry of Education
Leslie Wilson, Country Director, Save the Children, Georgia
Rebecca Winthrop, Co-Director, Center for Universal Education, Brookings Institute, DC
David Wright, Country Director, Save the Children, Pakistan
25
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