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EDUCATION AND

FRAGILITYTOWARDS A NEW

PARADIGMYolande Miller-

GrandvauxUSAID

Office of Education

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Fragility and Fragile States

“States are fragile when states’ structures lack political will, legitimacy and capacity to provide the basic functions needed for poverty reduction, development and to safeguard the security and human rights of their populations”

Principles for Good international engagement in fragile states or situation, OECD, April 2007

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The Conflict Spectrum Fragility encompasses the conflict spectrum from:

• Pre-Conflict

• Relief

• Recovery

• Reconstruction

• Sustainable Development3

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OECD Principles of Engagement in Fragile States

• Avoid pockets of exclusion

• Promote non discrimination: perceived discrimination is associated with fragility and conflict

• Focus on state building and capacity to deliver basic services, economic performance and employment generation

• Strengthen citizens’ trust in state institutions

• Promote participation of women, youth and minorities

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Traditional Perspective of Support to Education

• Assumptions about safety and stability • Interventions are on education goals

such as providing access to all • Focus on education inputs, outputs and

outcomes• Priority is often given to formal primary

schooling• Gender focus is often on equity over

equality

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Rethinking the Education Support Paradigm for

Fragile States

Goal: to support sector services to reduce fragility, increase state legitimacy and promote stabilityAssess:

1.How does education contribute to fragility?

2. How does fragility impact the delivery of education services?

Program:

Education services to mitigate the root causes of fragility, restore state capacity and legitimacy and promote stability

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Patterns of Fragility

1. Corruption, rent-seeking

2. Exclusion, elitism

3. Capacity deficits

4. Ungoverned spaces

5. Organized violence, insurgency

How do these affect education services?

How can education services reduce these patterns?

Photo courtesy of AFP/Muhammad Sabri

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Mitigate fragility by addressing exclusion through education

• Promote accelerated learning programs

• Include neglected identity groups

• Support expansion of secondary schools

• Beware of geographic distribution

• Increase the supply of non- formal education programs for youth and ex–combatants

• Develop training grants and business development programs for youth

• Include youth in activities related to the reconstruction of their region

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Mitigate fragility by building human capacity through

education

Think:• Recruit teachers and

para-teachers at primary and secondary levels

• Protect teachers in and outside of school

• Provide psycho-social, trauma and healing support to teachers, esp. those victims of witnesses to violence

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• Rebuild cadre of teacher trainers at the university level

• Teacher compensation• Rebuild mechanisms for

teacher identification, certification

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Mitigate fragility by addressing weak governance and corruption

through education

• Restore and strengthen trust in government authorities

• Address corruption issues in the creation of schools, management of school feeding programs, allocation of resources, exam administration, diplomas for teachers

• Strengthen capacity of the government authorities to dialogue with youth

• Offer and deliver literacy training for elected officials

• Build the capacity of school parents’ associations and civil society to demand and practice fair accountability and transparency

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Programming Considerations

• Formal vs. non formal• Children vs. youth vs. adults• Protection vs. assessment• Targeting the excluded vs. targeting the

masses• Religious vs. secular schooling• Universal access vs. priorities• Balance the important and the urgent

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Moving forward• Think differently• Assess differently• Design and execute so as to mitigate

fragility, improve resiliency, strengthen legitimacy and promote stability