The Right to Education in Emergency Situations

A/RES/64/290View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 114 Follow-up to the outcome of the Millennium Summit, published in 2009.

What subjects does this mandate have?

14 subjects

Armed Conflicts Educational Assistance Educational Facilities Educational Financing Educational Policy Girls Human Rights in Armed Conflicts Humanitarian Assistance Humanitarian Emergencies Natural Disasters Reconstruction Right to Education Rights of the Child Women's Education

What’s in this document?

21 operative paragraphs

Welcomes the work of the Special Rapporteur on the right to education, and takes note of his report on the right to education in emergency situations;¹⁶

¹⁶A/HRC/8/10.

Welcomes the work carried out by the Committee on the Rights of the Child through the holding on 19 September 2008 of a day of general discussion on the right of the child to education in emergency situations;

Notes with appreciation the work of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict on violations and abuses committed against children in armed conflict, and notes the importance of her continuing work, within her existing mandate, on the adverse impact of armed conflict on the education of children;

Welcomes the global advocacy initiative, the “One million safe schools and hospitals” campaign, launched on 8 April 2010 in Manila, aimed at making schools and hospitals safer from disasters, as part of the “Making Cities Resilient” global campaign of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction for 2010 and 2011;

Recognizes the establishment of the Education Cluster by the United Nations Inter-Agency Standing Committee and other initiatives as measures to address, in a coordinated manner, educational needs in emergency situations, including through partnerships for the implementation of the “Minimum standards for education: preparedness, response, recovery” handbook of the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies,¹⁷ calls upon donors to support the work of the Cluster, and emphasizes that those measures should continue to be taken in close coordination with relevant authorities;

¹⁷Available from www.ineesite.org.

Recalls its thematic debate of 18 March 2009 on access to education in emergency, post-crisis and transition situations caused by man-made conflicts or natural disasters;

Education in all stages of humanitarian response

Urges Member States to implement strategies and policies to ensure and support the realization of the right to education as an integral element of humanitarian assistance and humanitarian response, to the maximum of their available resources, with the support of the international community, the United Nations system, donors, multilateral agencies, the private sector, civil society and non-governmental organizations;

Requests Member States to ensure that the best possible systems of education are in place, including through the allocation of sufficient resources, the appropriate adaptation of curricula and training of teachers, the implementation of risk assessments, disaster preparedness programmes in schools, the legal framework for protection, and health and basic social services, so as to withstand emergencies;

Safe and protective educational environment

Recommends that Member States ensure access to education in emergency situations to all affected populations, in accordance with their obligations under international law and without discrimination of any kind;

Urges all parties to armed conflict to fulfil their obligations under international law, in particular their applicable obligations under international humanitarian law and international human rights law, including to respect civilians, including students and educational personnel, to respect civilian objects such as educational institutions and to refrain from the recruitment of children into armed forces or groups, urges Member States to fulfil their applicable obligations under international law, including international humanitarian law, related to the protection of and respect for civilians and civilian objects, and urges them, in order to prevent and combat impunity, to criminalize under their domestic law attacks on educational buildings, and stresses that such attacks may constitute grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions12 and, for States parties, war crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court;Error: Reference source not found

Urges Member States to ensure that disaster risk and safety considerations are factored into all phases of the planning, design, construction and reconstruction of educational facilities, through the consideration, inter alia, of the recommendations contained in the “Minimum standards for education: preparedness, response, recovery” handbook of the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies and its “Guidance notes on safer school construction”;16

Also urges Member States, in their support for education, to specifically address the gender-specific needs of girls in emergency contexts, including their increased vulnerability to gender-based violence;

Invites relevant United Nations entities and partners to allocate sufficient technical expertise to enhance, in close consultation with concerned Member States and relevant authorities, data collection on and documentation of the impact of emergencies on the access of children and young people to quality education, disaggregated by age and gender, and on attacks on educational institutions, students and educators, with due consideration given to information provided by concerned States and relevant authorities;

Urges Member States to implement gender-sensitive policies and programme interventions, in order to ensure that populations affected by emergency situations have equal access to safe, quality and relevant education;

Reconstruction and post-emergency situations

Also urges Member States to provide quality education in emergency situations that is gender-sensitive, centred on learners, rights-based, protective, adaptable, inclusive, participatory and reflective of the specific living conditions of children and youth, and that pays due regard, as appropriate, to their linguistic and cultural identity, mindful that quality education can foster tolerance and mutual understanding and respect for the human rights of others;

Calls upon all parties concerned to ensure that all peace processes and agreements and post-conflict recovery, peacemaking and peacebuilding efforts, as well as reconstruction planning, are sensitive to the special and specific needs of women, children and youth and include specific measures for the protection of civilians, including the facilitation of early access to education, learning and training, and to ensure the participation of women, children and young persons in those processes;

Calls upon States and other relevant actors to ensure the facilitation of early access to education and training for children and adults in secure and friendly environments in the aftermath of emergencies, including through the implementation of specific related measures in early recovery initiatives, peacemaking and peacebuilding processes, capacity-building strategies, the participation of children and youth and the mobilization and prioritization of human, technical and financial resources;

The importance of political will and financing

Reaffirms its commitment to supporting the efforts of developing countries to ensure that all children have access to and complete free and compulsory primary education of good quality, to eliminating gender inequality and imbalances and renewing efforts to improve the education of girls, and to continuing to support the efforts of developing countries in the implementation of the Education for All initiative, including with enhanced resources of all types through the Education for All fast-track initiative in support of country-led national education plans, and urges donors to honour their pledged contributions;

Calls upon States, as primary duty-bearers, to ensure the realization of the right to education in all phases of emergency situations, in a manner that meets the essential needs of the affected populations, recognizing the role of the donor community and humanitarian agencies in assisting those efforts;

Calls upon all Member States, including donors, and invites the private sector and all concerned individuals and institutions to continue to support diverse humanitarian funding channels and to consider increasing their contributions to education programmes defined in humanitarian appeals, including humanitarian consolidated and flash appeals, based on and in proportion to assessed needs, as a means of ensuring adequate, timely, predictable, flexible and needs-based resources;

Follow-up

Requests the Special Rapporteur on the right to education, in close cooperation with all relevant stakeholders, including Governments, United Nations agencies and programmes, civil society and other relevant United Nations mandate holders, to include in his next interim report to the General Assembly at its sixty-sixth session an update to his report on the right to education in emergencies, in order to identify gaps and remaining challenges in ensuring the right to education in emergency situations.