Posted: 10/11/10
By Barbara Zeus
To download the full paper, please visit: http://www.ineesite.org/roundtable2010
Today’s youth population is the largest the world has seen. Overall, of the 1.2 billion youth aged 15 to 24, almost 85 per cent live in developing countries; areas that see most of the world’s conflict, disaster or protracted crisis.
Youth find themselves in a formative and decisive period as they assume new responsibilities and make decisions that will affect lifelong potential. Youth have a lot to offer and contribute to peacebuilding, community reconstruction and development. Their physical strength, resilience and capacity, however, also render them more vulnerable under the extreme conditions of war and crisis as they may be targeted for violence, abuse and exploitation through forced labour, recruitment into armed forces, trafficking or commercial sex. They are thus at increased risk of related health issues such as unwanted pregnancies, HIV/AIDS and other sexually-transmitted diseases.
Despite these risks, youth continue to fall between protection, mandate and funding cracks. Youth in conflict situations are often prevented from attending school because of school closures, lack of safety and security in or en route to school. In refugee settings or once repatriated there may be bureaucratic obstacles in continuing or accessing next levels of education and many youth cannot integrate at levels commensurate with their prior levels of learning leading to frustration and drop-out. Of all beneficiaries in UNHCR-supported education programmes for refugees, only approximately five per cent are enrolled in secondary education, six per cent in non-formal and three per cent in vocational and tertiary education programmes. Access to education for crisis-affected youth living in rural areas, as Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), illegal migrants in urban areas or in the immediate aftermath of disasters is even more challenging than for long-term refugees in camp settings.
Youth have proven themselves to be a tremendous asset for any society. They can be far more than passive beneficiaries but can become positive actors. With adequate support structures and room for creative outlet, youth have self-initiated and further developed programmes leading to positive impacts beyond expected programme goals. Countries with very young and youthful age structures face great challenges, but also great potential to their development and security. When education, healthcare and employment are available, young people renew and revitalise a country’s economy and institutions. Without access to these social services, however, countries with a large proportion of young people have historically been the most volatile and vulnerable to conflict.
Effectively responding to youth’s rights, meeting their needs and allowing them to develop to their fullest potential even when affected by complex crisis should be a key concern for international humanitarian action. In order to tap into their potential and use their energy and resilience in a positive and constructive way for the common good, innovative approaches are needed. Considering how youth traverse a variety of sectors as they transition from childhood to adulthood and from education to employment, holistic approaches and coordinated action between the public and private domain, across sectors and domains of activity and across levels of decision-making are emerging as solution strategies for such complex challenges.
Holistic approaches recognise and contextualise the whole person’s well-being by looking beyond the individual and taking into consideration the environment youth live in and the factors that shape their behaviours, such as families, communities, schools, the media, the legal system, socio-cultural norms and the broader socio-economic and political context. Programmatic approaches are holistic when they match youth’s needs, interests and skills with locally available resources, services and market realities and integrating programmes into the wider context by establishing referral networks and cross-sectoral partnerships thus facilitating the transition from training to income generation. Such strong local linkages are also important for ownership, programme relevance and sustainability. Involving young people themselves in all stages of the project cycle and as peer educators has proven successful and led to youth empowerment.
What is needed therefore is coordinated action from researchers, policy makers and practitioners so youth move up on the priority list of the humanitarian agenda and receive the attention they deserve. Lessons on best practices and documented programme impacts need to be shared and disaggregated data on the characteristics of the heterogeneous youth population systematically collected. Youth participation in humanitarian action as partners and leaders needs to be treated as a matter of course and such mechanisms be formalised and institutionalised through the development of national youth plans. Improving coordination at the global level, with a view to improved practice at the national level to address the rights and needs of youth affected by crisis is also essential. Mechanisms and spaces for increased partnership and learning should be created, particularly between the Education, Protection, Early Recovery, Agriculture, WASH and Health Clusters, as well as with other cross-cutting issues such as Gender, HIV/AIDS and Mental Health and Psychosocial Support.
With increasing popularity of such approaches practical challenges remain that require our attention:
- What mechanisms and tools are needed to overcome challenges of data collection on crisis-affected youth?
- What partnerships are needed to effectively advocate for youth’s needs and how can such partnerships be developed and maintained at national and global levels?
- How can meaningful youth participation in humanitarian action become systematized and scaled up?
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Posted: 10/11/10
By Janice Dolan and Laura Brannelly, CfBT Education Trust
To download the full paper, please visit: www.ineesite.org/roundtable2010
Financing beyond the primary need
The needs of young people in the aftermath of conflict or crisis are vast, and failure to recognize these has been linked with prolonged instability. Many young people in these situations have had limited access to education or never had the opportunity to go to school. Yet these young people are central to reconstruction and recovery of their countries. There is a need to revisit investment in education opportunities for young people affected by conflict or crisis and ensure a focus beyond primary to also meet the needs of this section of the population.
Not only is access to basic education a right, but it is also a commitment made by governments and donors at Dakar to ensure that the learning needs of young people and adults are met (the third Education for All goal). Yet this goal was described in the latest Global Monitoring Report as “the subject of silent neglect.” Analysis undertaken for the INEE policy Roundtable on education for youth affected by crisis has revealed that investments made by governments and donors are disproportionate to the educational needs of young people needs as well as to the potential benefits.
The rationale for providing education for youth in these challenging contexts extends beyond international commitments. Evidence reviewed for the policy roundtable suggests that unequal access to education opportunities is associated with deepening social and economic disparities, fragility and the risk of conflict; and that access to secondary education in particular plays a critical role in reducing the likelihood and duration of conflict and fragility.
Financing for education can come from a number of sources – governments, bilateral and multilateral donors, foundations, non-governmental organizations and community contributions amongst others. However, there has been limited investment for education opportunities for youth – for example governments in conflict-affected fragile states (CAFS) are on average investing less in secondary education (24%) as a share of the education budget when compared to other low-income countries (30%).
Whilst donors have made progress in recent years to increase aid for education in countries affected by conflict and crisis, this support has typically lagged behind that provided to other low-income countries. In addition, much of the focus of this aid has been on primary education, linked with commitments to achieve universal primary education. Evidence presented in the second framing paper for the roundtable reveals that donors are investing less aid in basic skills, secondary education and vocational education in conflict-affected states ($618m) than in other low-income countries ($963m); and funding to post-primary education ($618m) is at lower levels that aid to primary and tertiary education ($1056m and $766m respectively). This is despite the numbers of youth who have missed out on their education due to crisis and the critical role that education at this level plays in long-term stability.
There are a number of challenges and opportunities relating to the financing of post-primary education. It clear that there is a need for investment across all education sectors in line with need, yet in situations of limited resources where more investment is always needed how do we balance priorities and ensure that the needs of one group are not neglected? It is vital to recognize the important role that youth contribute in post-crisis recovery in national policy, plans and donor strategies. Alongside this we need to explore innovative ways to finance post-primary education and seek to engage with new actors (foundations and businesses) in supporting youth education initiatives.
We need to ensure success in the educational opportunities we provide for young people in the aftermath of crisis. Enabling them to access meaningful learning experiences that help them progress to further levels of education or employment. In line with this, we also need to demonstrate the value for money of these investments and highlight the costs of failing to invest in our young people.
Further recommendations and analysis can be found in the framing paper “Financing for All: Beyond the Primary Need” prepared for the INEE 2010 policy roundtable.
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Posted: 10/11/10
By Josh Chaffin
To download the full paper, please visit: www.ineesite.org/roundtable2010
Education people and “livelihoods” people have to bridge the cultural divide that exists between them. Marginalized kids in crisis-affected countries don’t have the luxury of education for education’s sake. They need education that gets them a job, or shows them how to make their own money.
Education actors seem to think that someone else is responsible for creating pathways to employment (or self-employment). Likewise, agencies focused on income growth rarely engage adolescents. As a result, kids are dropping out of school because it seems irrelevant to their future income prospects. And we wonder why our secondary school transition rates are so disappointing!
Kids in crisis contexts are forced to make a tragic choice between learning and earning. Most education programs don’t recognize their need to contribute to the household economy. I’m not arguing that we should be enabling harmful child labor, but we’re kidding ourselves if we think we can just build schools without addressing the constraints on demand for education. Most every kid wants to go to school; what are we doing to make school attendance worth the opportunity cost? Here are a few ideas for agencies to implement:
- Work with the government and the private sector to create a national plan for youth livelihoods, and make sure that youth—especially girls and young women, are actively engaged in the discussion at all stages. This can be part of a process to develop a national youth policy, a disaster recovery plan, or the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP).
- Facilitate the creation of pilot “dual track” schools that offer a combination of basic education, life skills, employability skills, and trade skills. Encourage girls to train in traditionally male fields. Curricula and tools are available in abundance.
- Reorient your non-formal education (NFE) offerings for out-of-school youth to measure impact, not just inputs. Engage youth to develop the indicators and to collect the data.
- Teach teachers about the mechanisms behind economic growth, so that they can share it with their students. Many people in “patronage states” are used to the government and NGOs being the main providers of formal employment, and they have no idea that small and medium enterprises are what drive growth. This is a first step toward bringing entrepreneurship education into the classroom.
- Bring together the various government ministries responsible for skills training (usually it’s the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Youth, but sometimes more ministries are involved) and create a platform to help them overhaul the national trade certification framework.
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Posted: 10/11/10
Hibist Kassa is an Ethiopian refugee residing in Ghana and studying Political Science at the University of Ghana.
What does post-primary education offer a young person? This question means a lot in my life because I know the difference it can make. In most countries in the ‘developing world’, a life is more than a life. It is linked to an extended family and, ultimately, a community of people. Where states fail, these are the support networks people rely on. So why does a young person need to know more than how to read or write? A basic understanding of algebra should be enough, right? To the contrary, this only offers a person with what they need to interact in a very limited way in the social, political and economic life of their respective countries. How does a young person acquire the skills to develop informed opinions or views on the hardship that refugees and IDPs face daily? How does the community find its voice? Education gives a person a voice. Young people want education so that their voices can be heard. Education lays the basis for social and economic freedom to be achieved. As a young person this only means, we want to be free!
Almost every day, I meet a young woman or man who has the drive and potential to pursue higher education. Sadly, as the cost of tertiary education
rises annually, more young people lose their access to education at the tertiary level. It’s even more complicated when refugees deal with this general state of crisis. I have had the opportunity to pursue higher education. But this has not been without struggle.
For example, when I gained admission into the University of Ghana, I was mistakenly identified as a foreign student. Compared with the fees ‘local’ students were to pay, my fees were enormous. Most of the refugees I knew could not afford to cover the payment for the application form. This means that even if they were admitted as ‘local’ students, they would not be able to afford to pay the fees. At that time, I was bewildered by my large tuition bill. Confounded, I was in despair. But by a stroke of luck and the initiative of the then program officer of the Albert Einstein German Academic Fund for Refugees Initiative (DAFI), I applied for a scholarship. I was awarded a full scholarship and was given an opportunity I have been appreciative of ever since.
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Posted: 10/11/10
Como la INEE esta preparando la Mesa Redinda de Politica de la INEE para la próxima semana, necesitamos tus aportes. Por favor considera estas tres preguntas y envíanos
tus comentarios, ideas y experriencias:
- ¿Cuales son algunos ejemplos de enfoques post-primaria y educación no formal que están siendo usados para construir en jóvenes habilidades para sus medios de vida? ¿Puedes describir alguna política o programa que aborde este tema? ¿Conoces alguna práctica o lección aprendida para compartir?
- ¿Cómo se financia los programas de educación para jóvenes? ¿Que tipos de financiamiento tu o tu organización han podido movilizar para programas para jóvenes? ¿Tienes algunos desafíos y/o recomendaciones para compartir sobre como asegurar financiamiento para jóvenes?
- ¿Qué podemos aprender como técnicos en educación sobre la programación de otros sectores con jóvenes? Por favor comparte buenas prácticas y ejemplos sobre programación efectiva para jóvenes en otros sectores. ¿Conoces ejemplos de otros sectores trabajando en conjunto para atender las necesidades de jóvenes?
Si prefieres compartir directamente tus ideas por correo electrónico, envía un mensaje a {encode="spanish@ineesite.org" title="spanish@ineesite.org"}. Gracias por tus contribuciones!
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Posted: 10/11/10
Kashif belongs to Pakistan’s conflict-affected Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, which has recently also been troubled by disastrous floods. He is pursuing a PhD in Development studies from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. His research interests include human security and livelihoods with reference to communities affected by natural calamities and conflicts.
My PhD research focuses on the links between development policies and human security (HS) discourses and on their impacts on the livelihoods of communities affected by the conflict in North Western Pakistan. The promises of development as an instrument for turning people away from the path of extremism has been propounded in the last eight years; both the governments of Pakistan and the United States have advocated development as an essential feature in their policy for pacifying the disgruntled inhabitants of this region. The responsibility of protecting people from conflicts needs to be complemented by rebuilding war torn areas – which requires comprehensive and integrated strategies that link the political, military, humanitarian and development aspects.
The state authorities in North Western Pakistan claim to pursue a strategy based on development, dialogue and deterrence in relation to the regional conflict. However, the practical implementation of this in terms of activities on the ground – and the impact on human security – has yet to be understood. This research will therefore closely examine the development policies and programmes promoted in the conflict-ridden areas of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. In so doing, it will explore the ways in which livelihood strategies are played out in practice, and how this has, in turn, influenced human development and security.
It will also focus on the role of youth as an active party to the current conflict, which has aggravated in the last few years. The needs of youth have been neglected over time, and unless their rights are duly protected and safeguarded, the conflict will not stabilize since the lack of education and livelihood opportunities are seen by some as the biggest factors causing radicalization of youth in this context.
The major objective of this study is to understand the nexus between development and security in North Western Pakistan, and how this influences people’s livelihoods. Specifically, the objective is to explore the merger of security and development in terms of the HS and State Security discourses and the kind of policies framed as part of the North Western Pakistan conflict.
This study seeks to employ a case study approach, which is deemed to be more useful in gauging the opinions and perceptions in terms of household livelihood recoveries. Discourse analysis is being employed for understanding the development and security discourses in this setting. In this research, North Western Pakistan is the major case and is considered for the phenomenon of development and security and their interdependence.
A stratified random sample is the sampling procedure adopted in case of livelihood revival patterns of IDP returnee communities. A comparison of livelihood strategies adopted by households during the pre- and post-conflict and post-flood periods is being undertaken. Data collection is carried out from different household types amongst groups of IDP returnees.
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Posted: 09/11/10
Lindiwe Sibanda is from Zimbabwe and is currently studying in South Africa.
I was born and raised in Zimbabwe, a country where education is a big priority – and not just education, but quality education. However, because of conflict, I eventually found myself in a situation I had never before imagined.
In 2007, I had just finished my GCSE Advanced level, and my next level had to be university; I was 17 years of age. I found myself in a foreign country baring the name “refugee.” I then started to work as a domestic worker for a Jewish family that my mother also worked for. As my studies had been put on hold, every single day I would think about my education. I decided to get admission at the university, even though I did not know how I would afford it. I told myself I would work different jobs and study at the same time. The first semester was not easy with all the financial problems as well as
time management challenges. Fortunately for me, I was lucky enough to learn of the DAFI Initiative, which to my knowledge is the one of the only organizations that fund refugee university education in South Africa (many of the other organizations prefer to focus on primary education because it is cheaper). At that time, I also had colleagues who were pursuing funding for university education. Unfortunately, because of the influx of applicants, only a few applicants were lucky. They tried to work and study, but the pressure was too much and many had to drop out of university. Now they are working as domestic workers without an education.
Post-primary education can shape an individual’s livelihood and cut the cycle of poverty. When we promote post-primary education, it helps individuals, and it helps to address larger problems like unemployment and poor economic and social structures. When these youth are educated, they will be able to take up careers, to give back to their communities, and to contribute to economic growth by working professionally in their specific fields. We need to also realize that the right to education promotes understanding, tolerance and friendship among ethnic, racial, social and religious groups.
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Posted: 05/11/10
Yadanar is from Myanmar and now studies at the Asian University for Women in Bangladesh.
I was educated on the border of Thailand and Myanmar. I used to study there by entering illegally into my neighbor country. I had to live with many challenges for the two years that I studied there, but I got a higher education.
When I first arrived to the school on the border, my level of English was just elementary. It was so clear that my general knowledge and mind were very narrow. I didn’t even know the current situation of my beloved country. How then could it be possible to have information about all over the world?
After attending the school on the border, I have learned many things – not only understanding about my country, Burma, but also about some of the conflicts from many countries in the world such as N. Korea, Palestine and so on. This knowledge I gained from my higher education with the support of my teachers, who are from Australia. I have now won a scholarship in Liberal Arts Studies from Asian University for Women in Bangladesh.
In my experience, although the education fees are very expensive in Burma, many people want effective and affordable education because we face the lack of higher education in my beloved country. Without education, we cannot become a developed country, politically, economically and socially. Education not only helps one’s own family, but also can improve the entire community.
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Posted: 03/11/10
Philip F. Davis currently resides in Monrovia where he works as a Monitoring and Evaluation Officer for the Christian HIV and AIDS Network of Liberia. He is a graduate of the University of Liberia and a member of the Women’s Refugee Commission Youth Advisory Group.
For a wholesome and functioning society, post-primary education coupled with opportunities for better livelihoods for crisis-affected youth are the appropriate tools for fostering lasting peace and development. To succeed, crisis-affected youth must be equipped with advanced skills beyond literacy in order to stay healthy, enter the workforce, and earn money as a means of living a meaningful life.
I grew up in the war-torn country of Liberia, where the rights of men, women and children were violated through torture and rape/sexual harassment, and where children were used as child soldiers. This transformed them into agents of drug abuse, which was devastating and discouraging to their parents who wanted to see their children become useful in the future. Accepting and living with this situation requires a lot.
Going through the primary stage of my education under sporadic gun fire, which continued up to my secondary level, it became very difficult to pursue this educational venture simply because my parents were incapacitated financially – a situation that led many Liberian youths to becoming child soldiers and illegally take away people’s belongings to aid their families.
In order to pursue both post-primary and higher education, I first had to accept that I had no control over this situation but had to remain focused in my pursuit of higher education. I decided to help my parents to sell some basic commodities as a means of raising funds to address some of our needs. Through the help of God, my parents were able to thrive, and I completed secondary education. However, in the search of higher education I was alone because my parents had to take care of the little ones who came after me.
My struggle and completion of a university education was aided by scholarships. I was a petit trader, which many Liberian youth are presently doing. However, this generates only a little money, meant for daily sustenance, not for rent, school fees or other basic needs. It provides just enough to live and to begin the struggle the next day. Tuition and fees for private universities and schools are very costly, and the vast majority of the populace lives on less than $1USD a day. On the other hand, you must consider their right to education and to better opportunities to improve their livelihoods. The only affordable university is the state university, the University of Liberia, where 95% of students are on scholarship. During the time of admitting students, the University of Liberia gives entrance/test to more than 12,000 students while they only need around 2,500 students. The competition is so tense, but by the help of God I finally graduated from the University of Liberia.
While it is true that I have made it through higher education, the question is not about me in particular. It is about the thousands of youth who have been affected by crisisboth in Liberia and in other parts of the world. These youth are not able to navigate through such disfigured terrain; many are parentless or without strong parent like me. But they have the passion for education, which is their right. And the question now is—what can we do to remedy such situation for a wholesome and functioning society?
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Posted: 02/11/10
Bhuwan represents the youth of Nepal as a member of the UNFPA’s Global Youth Advisory Panel (GYAP) and the Women’s Refugee Commission Youth Advisory Group (YAG).
In Nepal, where the literacy rate is 57% and the percentage of the educated population is even lower, vocational trainings play a vital role in creating skilled manpower among youth and in generating employment opportunities.
Many students drop out of school after completing their primary schooling. The main reason for this is their increased role as breadwinner of their respective families after they enter the youth age group. This trend has created a huge gap in the skilled manpower creation process because all of these young people get engaged in the informal sector, where working conditions are risky and the dignity of labor is comparatively less.
The Nepalese government, with the support of various agencies, has started an employment fund through which young people acquire various vocational skills to enhance their livelihood opportunities. Realizing the importance of vocational trainings, The Council for Technical Education and Vocational Training (CTEVT) was constituted by the government in 1989. CTEVT’s have contacts in all of the districts of Nepal and offer different types of vocational trainings and support systems. I am interested in the provisions of these livelihood training opportunities and in finding where the gaps are within this system.
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