INEE Working Group on Education and Fragility Exploring the linkages between Education, Health and Peace Concept note

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1 INEE Working Group on Education and Fragility Exploring the linkages between Education, Health and Peace Concept note Purpose of the initiative To identify areas of collaboration and concrete steps for health and education sectors to work together to support state and peace building processes. Expected outcome - Enhanced collaboration between the health and education sectors to contribute to the prevention of violent conflicts and support state and peace building processes - Coordinated conflict-sensitive health and education planning and programming - Increased donor support to the development of coordinated, conflict-sensitive education and health plans and programs. Conceptual framework The INEE working group on Education and Fragility has considered four types of interrelationship between education, health and peace, which are shown in the diagram below: 1

2 For the four relationships, conflict and fragility are the context where these sectors operate. The objective of exploring the first three relationships would be to find ways of improving education and health delivery within fragile and conflict affected states: 1) How health interventions can support education in contexts of fragility e.g. Deworming & vitamin supplements to improve attendance and learning 2) How education interventions can support health in contexts of fragility, e.g. Health sector manpower development through improvement of post-primary education Public health education in schools Improved maternal and infant health as a result of girls education 3) How health and education sectors can coordinate for better efficiency and effectiveness e.g. Schools as sites for feeding and vaccinations Health professionals giving health education in schools Coordination over recruitment/ payments/ incentives etc Uniformity and coordination over fundraising mechanisms and sources Uniformity and coordination over fund dispersal and implementation modalities (e.g. how donors work with/ through governments and NGOs) This relationship could also look at how coordination/ lack of coordination can impact on peace. For example: CfBTs recent research showed evidence of some citizens feeling aggrieved by the different incentive packages for community volunteers/ workers paid by different NGOs. Coordination between health and education NGOs could help to mitigate this (this is assuming that coordination is already taking place within the sectors) Coordination on the use of conflict sensitivity approaches in the funding, planning and implementation of health and education development programs. 4) The fourth relationship (shown by arrow 4) focuses on how the health and education sectors working together can promote peace. In other words, state building and peace building are the desired objectives. Investigating this relationship, and ways of strengthening it could involve: Drawing together evidence on how these two sectors can contribute to state legitimacy and peace building (e.g. building further on recent work CfBT has done) Understanding how conflict-sensitive approaches to education and health can strengthen collaboration between both sectors and provide a framework to work together and maximize positive impacts in fragile and conflict affected contexts Relationships 1 and 2 have already been well documented in non-fragile contexts, and the relationships are unlikely to be significantly different in conflict affected and fragile contexts, 2

3 although the needs within both sectors, and hence the need for mutual support, will tend to be more acute. Relationship 3 (coordination between Education and health) is likely to be highly context dependent, e.g. it will be very different in humanitarian responses compared to post conflict recovery. The impact of coordination between both sectors on peace building can shed lights on gaps and potential collaborative initiatives. Relationship 4 is more challenging to explore. The empirical research base is much more limited, even taking each sector independently. However, there is a growing body of work in this area (i.e. taking each sector independently) as the following examples show: Education A country which has ten percentage points more of its youth in schools say 55% instead of 45% - cuts risk of conflict from 14% to around 10% (Collier, as cited in Practical Action Consulting et al., 2011, p. 24). INEE (2011) found that in Afghanistan, Liberia and Cambodia, education played a role in mitigating fragility where there was community-based education and community involvement in education management, as this helped to build local ownership and confidence (Practical Action Consulting et al., 2011, p. 27) In Lebanon, a non-formal education programme known as Education for Peace straddled both the conflict and immediate post-conflict phase of the civil war. Bringing together different segments of the community, it provided a space for reconciliation and envisioning an alternative future. During research interviews, it was widely cited as the most successful programme of its kind, and it gave root to multiple other programmes and efforts that have been modelled on it, developing a generation of peace education activists that would later become leaders of NGOs and institutions. (UNICEF, 2011b, p. 30) Health An example of how the health sector may contribute to conflict management: In the mid-1980s, UNICEF, the Roman Catholic church, and other organisations negotiated days of tranquillity in El Salvador. Fighting was suspended for the immunisation of children for three days each year from 1985 until the peace accords in Major gains in the health goals of the campaign were ostensibly achieved, with a total of children immunised at several thousand sites each year. The incidence of measles, tetanus, and polio dropped dramatically, that of polio to zero. A negotiating framework between government, the army, and rebel forces, mediated by the church, was created at the national level and multiple local levels. This ostensibly contributed favourably to the achievement of the peace accords (MacQueen & Santa-Barbara, 2000, p. 294). Three country case studies found that the improvement of the health system is crucial in the long-term peace building processes by providing stable demographic 3

4 pattern and strong labour force ready to participate in the economic recovery of the state (Filipov, 2006, p. 49) The book entitled Pandemics and Peace: Public health cooperation in zones of conflict, written by William Long and published by USIP, adds to the literature on health and peace building by demonstrating how health has the power to convene actors in a common purpose, to signal the possibility of rapprochement between longstanding adversaries, and to serve as a positive dimension of larger interstate dynamics. The book chronicles joint work by public health professionals across tense or conflictual state lines in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and East Africa, and explores the extent to which public health cooperation can lead to new and improved forms of transnational political cooperation. The author shows that while these functional collaborations do not seem to have effects on the larger conflicts, they are nonetheless possible, and can serve as icebreakers in traditionally hostile relations. Given this growing body of work in each sector, this initiative will identify ways of strengthening collaboration between the two sectors in supporting state and peace building processes in fragile and conflict-affected contexts (Relationship 4). It will also look at already established coordination activities between the education and health sectors and explore how this can contribute to the prevention of conflicts, the mitigation of violence and further support state- and peace building. This initiative will as well identify counter examples where lack of coordination can exacerbate/ fail to address conflict. (Relationship 3). Outputs of the initiative: 1. A literature review focusing on Relationship 3 of the above diagram. This review could identify existing coordination between the two sectors, as well as gaps. 2. An event hosted by USIP in Spring 2013, which will bring together experts and practitioners from the health and education sectors in fragile and conflict affected states to discuss opportunities for greater coordination and collaboration to promote state and peace building (Relationship 4) 3. A series of webinars based on this event, which can be shared more widely, including on the INEE website 4. A publication/ booklet/ resource which will Present examples of programs and projects that integrate both education and health interventions and demonstrate how these sectors work together to prevent violent conflicts and support peace building processes Identify existing gaps where better collaboration is needed to prevent conflicts and support peace. Present examples of or potential for coordinated conflict-sensitive education and health planning and programming. Identify key advocacy messages to address the donor community to support the development of coordinated, conflict-sensitive education and health plans and programs. 4

5 Reference list Arya, N. (2004). Peace through Health I: Development and use of a working model. Medicine, conflict and survival, 20 (3), Retrieved 11 December, 2012, from Carpenter, S., Slater, R., & Mallett, R. (2012). Social protection and basic services in fragile and conflict-affected situations. Working paper 8, Overseas Development Institute. Retrieved 11 December, 2012, from Filipov, F. (2006). Post-conflict peacebuilding: Strategies and lessons from Bosnia and Herzegovina, El Salvador and Sierra Leone. Some thoughts from the rights to education and health. Serie politicas sociales 123. Retrieved 11 December, 2012, from Long, W. J. (2011). Pandemics and Peace: Public health cooperation in zones of conflict. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace. MacQueen, G., & Santa-Barbara, J. (2000). Peace building through health initiatives. British Medical Journal, 321 (7256), Retrieved 11 December, 2012, from Practical Action Consulting, Save the Children, & CfBT Education Trust (2011). Statebuilding, peace-building and service delivery in fragile and conflict-affected states: Literature Review. Final Report. Retrieved 11 December, 2012, from Save the Children, & Health and Fragile States Network (2010). The role of the health sector in wider state-building. A discussion paper. Retrieved 11 December, 2012, from ow_res_(2)_1.pdf Skinner, H., Abdeen, Z., Abdeen, H., Aber, P., Al-Masri, M., Attias, J., Noyek, A. (2005). Promoting Arab and Israeli cooperation: peacebuilding through health initiatives. The Lancet, 365 (9466), Retrieved 11 December, 2012, from UNICEF (2011a). The role of education in peacebuilding: Literature review. Retrieved 11 December, 2012, from UNICEF (2011b). The role of education in peacebuilding: A synthesis report of findings from Lebanon, Nepal and Sierra Leone. Retrieved 11 December, 2012, from Website with health resources focused on conflict transformation: 5

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