As the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has taught us, no country or education system is immune from crisis; therefore, building resilience is the key not only to avoiding losses but to sustaining and progressing toward our shared goals in the education sector.
Collective action is needed across the humanitarian-development spectrum to build inclusive and adaptable education systems that are prepared for and have the capacity to respond to crises, so that every child and young person has a chance to go to school, stay in school, and complete a full cycle of primary and secondary education.
Humanitarian-development coherence is a broad and complex topic that relates to many aspects of education, from policy and coordination to planning, financing, and programming.
It brings together actors with different mandates, points of view, and institutional cultures, thus finding common ground is not automatic. It is, rather, the result of a sometimes-long process of dialogue and trust-building.
While many practical examples of coherence are being implemented at the global and country level, there are mixed levels of understanding and engagement with humanitarian-development coherence in the education sector, and a variety of structural barriers stand in the way of its operationalization.