Last May, the European Union announced an ambitious plan to dedicate 10 percent of its 2019 humanitarian aid budget to education during emergencies. At the same time the European Commission released its first policy on education in emergencies, observing that “access to quality education is being denied to millions of children by increasingly protracted conflicts, forced displacement, violence, climate change and disasters.” As a result, the Commission notes, “uneducated, lost generations” have been forced “to embark on perilous journeys to Europe and other regions of the world, affecting their stability and development.” The European Union’s announcement is a welcome development for global education, which has received scant attention from international aid agencies and languished at the margins of the international humanitarian agenda.

Education and Human Security

The international community has long made ambitious commitments to education, deeming it a core component of human dignity and development. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, signed in 1948, enshrines the “right to free, compulsory elementary education.” The UN reaffirmed the value of education in its 2015 Sustainable Development Goals, one of which pledges to “ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes.”

But the divide between this aspirational rhetoric and humanitarian reality is stark. While the EU has laudably taken a step in the right direction, other donor countries have been reluctant to follow suit. For example, the United States will spend only 1.8 percent of its US$27.7 billion foreign assistance budget on basic and higher education. Overall, there is a US$26 billion shortfall in financing for global education. When UNICEF requested US$932 million to conduct educational programming in disaster settings in 2017, it received less than US$115 million, or just 12 percent of its initial target. In light of these disheartening figures, the current state of global education may constitute, as some have noted, a “humanitarian emergency.”

In recent years, this emergency has shown few signs of abating. In 2014, 263 million children and youth were not enrolled in school. In southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, more than half of secondary school-age youth do not attend school. Of the 17.2 million refugees under the supervision of the UN refugee agency, nearly half are children—and 3.5 million did not receive a single day of schooling in 2016.

In redoubling its commitment to education during emergencies, the EU has drawn much-needed attention to the profound importance of education to human security. According to Save the Children, 30 percent of people victimized by humanitarian emergencies rank education as their most important need—more than any other basic service, like food and water. A survey of children found similar results: 38 percent ranked education as their highest priority and 69 percent ranked it in their top three priorities.

The Costs of Inaction

The dearth of funding for emergency education has real, devastating costs for people all over the world—especially those in conflict-stricken environments, where educational institutions and personnel are often among the first casualties of violence. In those places, the scarcity of educational opportunities is especially acute. Conflict-affected countries normally constitute only 20 percent of the world’s primary school-aged population, but are home to 50 percent of the out-of-school population of schoolchildren. Armed conflict can also reduce the number of years of schooling available to young people and reverse any progress made in low-income countries’ educational systems. In Afghanistan, civil conflict between 1978 and 2001 resulted in the loss of 5.5 years of schooling, on average, for Afghan individuals.

Conflict can also impede the physical security of educational systems, harming students, teachers, and school facilities. Because schools represent state authority, they are often the targets of anti-government violence. Unrest in East Timor in September 1999, for example, resulted in the destruction of 80-90 percent of its schools. During the civil war in Mozambique, damage to educational infrastructure left the majority of the country’s two million primary school-aged children without access to schooling. In the past five years alone, 300 schools in the Middle East operated by the UN have been destroyed. Afghanistan, Colombia, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, and Syria have all experienced 1,000 or more attacks each on schools, universities, students, and teaching staffs.

Education in Emergencies Is an Investment in Peace

For the resolution of conflict and the provision of basic safety, education—during emergencies and periods of relative normalcy—is critical. In the near term, education in disaster or conflict settings can save lives. In November 1998, the Oslo/Hadeland conference on child protection found that “education has a preventive effect on recruitment, abduction and gender based violence, and thereby serves as an important protection tool.”

The personal security afforded to young people by educational facilities must not be underestimated. Schools and the recreational opportunities they offer allow children to play, access nutritious meals, and avoid harmful behavior under the supervision of adults. Education can also promote psychosocial well-being, giving children the chance to adhere to a reliable routine, interact with peers in a respectful environment, and express themselves constructively. And, in terms of safety, literacy and numeracy can prepare children to protect themselves and seek out assistance for themselves and their families.

In the long term, education can help prevent humanitarian tragedies and reduce the frequency of conflict. Each year of education available to a population reduces the risk of conflict by 20 percent. If a country’s secondary school enrollment rate exceeds the global average by just 10 percentage points, the risk of war breaking out falls from 11.5 percent to 8.6 percent.

Investments in education can pay substantial dividends in economic and human development as well. In low-income countries, every dollar spent on education yields benefits in earnings and health outcomes worth $10. And the rapid decline in adult mortality since 1970—a drop of roughly one-third—can be attributed in large part to the education of young girls and women.

Over time, support for classrooms, instructors, and students in regions beleaguered by disaster and underdevelopment can facilitate the realization of a more stable, more equitable world.

Funding for education is “a strategic investment in global peace and prosperity,” said Christos Stylianides, the European Commission’s chief of humanitarian aid and crisis management. “I think it’s the most important strategic objective for peace.”