Invest in anticipatory action to reduce the impact of conflict and crises

The escalation of armed conflicts and the worsening climate crisis threaten access to education for the world’s most vulnerable children and youth. 

In 2025, 234 million children caught up in humanitarian crises need urgent support to access education.

In this context, “Acting Ahead to Protect Education Investments – Why the need for proactive approaches to crises is more urgent than ever” published by the Geneva Global Hub for Education in Emergencies, argues that acting ahead of a predictable hazardous event to prevent or mitigate the impact on communities before the event fully unfolds, or to improve the response, has enormous benefits.

For education, this could mean pre-empting school dropouts during a drought by providing conditional cash transfers to families, or ensuring learning continuity after floods by pre-positioning emergency education supplies. 

To reduce disruption of education, schools can also be fortified, learning materials protected, and early warning systems activated.

Unfortunately, anticipatory approaches overall and for education specifically remain underfunded. The report reveals that only 1% of humanitarian funding is allocated to risk reduction more broadly, and just 0.2% to targeted action ahead of specific, predictable hazardous events. 

Speaking at the report's launch in Geneva, the International Parliamentary Network for Education’s executive director, Joseph Nhan-O’Reilly, said, “acting ahead of emergencies can save lives, minimise suffering, and ensure limited funding has the biggest impact.

“We need to move from reactive to more proactive responses to safeguard education in emergencies for children and youth.”

IPNEd is a member of the Geneva Global Hub for Education in Emergencies. The Hub is a physical and virtual platform that catalyses joint action among its members and increases collaboration with other sectors to prioritise education in emergencies. Together, the EiE Hub members work to create change internationally, increase country-level impact, and foster political, financial, and operational commitments for EiE.

In 2023, during Education Cannot Wait’s High-Level Financing Conference in Geneva, IPNEd and the Hub launched the Geneva Declaration on Education in Emergencies.

The Geneva Declaration is designed to provide a framework for raising awareness of the impact of forced displacement and humanitarian crises on education and to identify and generate support for actions that parliamentarians and their governments can take in response to these challenges.