The second Global Refugee Forum held two months ago, was the world’s largest gathering for a range of stakeholders, including Member States, to make pledges which will make a transformational impact on the lives of refugees. Since the Global Compact on Refugees was first affirmed by Member States in December 2018, there has been a big increase in the number of people displaced across borders as a result of ongoing and new conflicts including in Ukraine.
Shockingly, the number of school aged refugees has nearly doubled from 7.5 million in 2018 to 14.8 million in 2022. Half of these children are out of school – with the rest often not receiving the quality of learning they need.
288 refugee children we consulted ahead of the Forum in seven refugee-hosting countries across Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe and the Middle East told us they place huge value on education as a key building block for their recovery from their displacement.
Every child deserves a safe and supportive environment to learn and grow. Let’s work together to create schools where every student feels accepted and valued for who they are. - Syrian refugee girl, Iraq
So, what did the Forum achieve on education and how do we ensure promises are kept?
New pledges made in support of education
UNHCR initiated a new pledge-making format different from the process at the first Forum in 2019. All individual pledges were encouraged to align under ‘multi-stakeholder pledges’ with the best of these becoming ‘mega-pledges’. A somewhat confusing process with the aim of crowding in increased, SMART and transformational activities under ambitious umbrella goals.
For education, 235 individual pledges were submitted in support of the three multi-stakeholder pledges (one of which was a mega-pledge). This is similar in number to the 233 education pledges submitted at the 2019 Forum. However, it is a slightly lower proportion of all pledges submitted at 15% compared to 17% in 2019. Education pledges submitted by Member States make up roughly the same percentage (30%) of pledges made 2019, with the rest submitted by NGOs, private sector and others.
The mega-pledge to ensure refugee children have access to safe, quality, and relevant education opportunities and are included in national education systems gained the most support with 114 pledges made towards it. Including refugees in national education systems is the most sustainable way to achieve enrolment and learning at scale. It represents a long-term investment and a more socially inclusive approach than parallel systems. Considering information about this pledge was shared late on in the lead up to the Forum, it’s encouraging to see the level of support it received, particularly from many refugee hosting countries and donors.
As a leader of this mega-pledge the UK has made a modest, but potentially transformational pledge of £4m to the World Bank. This will provide technical expertise to refugee hosting countries who are eligible under the World Bank’s IDA Window for Refugees and Host Communities to produce quality financing proposals for large investments for costed national refugee education plans. Getting the Bank to stimulate demand in refugee hosting countries for financing of refugee education has been a recommendation of ours since 2018. We look forward to the next steps of implementation.
Last year, we analysed progress towards the education pledges made at the first Forum in 2019. We found that pledges made were often vague, not timebound or measurable and were sometimes re-announcements of commitments previously made. A light-touch review of the 114 new pledges made under this mega-pledge, also indicate there this is an ongoing challenge.
Save the Children’s new education pledges align with the mega-pledge and are focused on early childhood development, education in emergencies, teachers, and inclusion in national education systems.
So, what next?
Accountability for the pledges made is the most important next step. Without this, the Forum will have been a missed opportunity – one that refugee children cannot afford.
Of the education pledges made in 2019, our analysis found that just 24% had been fulfilled, while 72% were in progress and 4% were in planning stages. For over a quarter of education pledges (26%) there was no status update at all, meaning that implementation status remains unknown. While the reporting of pledges is voluntary, and is self-reported by the pledge-makers, without regular reporting it is not possible to assess progress achieved.
This lack of reporting must be tackled this time around. Monitoring, tracking and reporting mechanisms for pledges need to be improved. All pledge-makers should report regular updates (at least once a year). UNHCR should set out now expectations for timing and format of reporting and put in place an annual meeting to track overall progress, course correct and gather more support as needed to ensure pledges are fulfilled.
As a first step the leaders of the multi-stakeholder pledges should collectively agree how they plan to track and support reporting of all the pledges that align under their pledge. They have already shown leadership in crowding in support – they now need to follow-through to ensure promises made, lead to impact for refugee children.
