Education in Crisis and Conflict
The Role of Education in Peacebuilding: A synthesis report of findings from Lebanon, Nepal and Sierra Leone
This research sought to understand the role of education in peacebuilding in postconflict states. The research was commissioned by UNICEF as part of the Education and Emergencies and Post-Crisis Transition (EEPCT) programme – a partnership between UNICEF, the Government of the Netherlands and the European Commission. The study consisted of two phases:
- Firstly, a literature review of education's role in peacebuilding.
- Secondly, the completion of three country case studies (Lebanon, Nepal and Sierra Leone), with a particular emphasis on the work of UNICEF. Rather than selecting cases for similarities, we sought to select for variety, drawing out the wide disparities between cases to enable a sense of the types of education programming taking place in very different conflict environments.
During the fieldwork, interviews and consultation meetings were held with a wide range of national and international stakeholders in each country, including UN representatives, government officials, INGO and NGO representatives, UNICEF staff members and teachers. This report is a synthesis derived from both phases.Key Findings:
- The concept of peacebuilding is not well defined. UNICEF must decide its own interpretation, which would need to go beyond humanitarian assistance and to emphasize social transformation within conflict-affected societies.
- Neither UNICEF nor the education sector has been strongly integrated into the UN peacebuilding agenda within countries.
- Consistent with its mandate, UNICEF has comparative advantages to take a lead on peacebuilding, however it must consider the implications of how this may affect perceptions and how peacebuilding relates to other priority areas.
- For UNICEF education programming to support peacebuilding there is a strong need to: build key partnerships at the global level; work with national governments; identify partners that share transformation goals (with the understanding this may create tensions with other partners or governments); make education programming more relevant to post-conflict transformations; take a gender-sensitive approach to peacebuilding programming; ensure a peacebuilding/conflict analysis lens informs all policy; and move from generic ‘global' solutions to localized adaptations.
- There is a need for a comprehensive capacity-building strategy for peacebuilding across all agencies from headquarters level to field offices.
- There are important distinctions between humanitarian response programming, providing conflict-sensitive education, and programmes aimed at peacebuilding. Thus, it is important to develop monitoring and evaluation indicators that are particular to peacebuilding outcomes.
- There is a distinctive role for research that generates new knowledge and insight into education programming and how it relates to longer-term peacebuilding. (Excerpts from Executive Summary, pp. 6-8)