6 October 2021: TWICE INVISIBLE: A lack of data in crises leaves the education of Internally Displaced Children behind. Time to act! at UN World Data Forum 2021
NORRAG, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and Development Initiatives, UK, co-organised on 6 October 2021 a session at the UN World Data Forum 2021. “TWICE INVISIBLE: A lack of data in crises leaves the education of Internally Displaced Children behind. Time to act!” focused on the issue of internally displaced children in emergency and protracted crisis situations, which belong to the most vulnerable and least visible groups.
An uncounted number of children and youth are being denied their right to education. If their right to education were upheld, they would be able to strive towards a more hopeful future in the same way as girls and boys from other parts of their country. These children risk permanently being left behind! A lack of data is a key reason for this neglect. It leaves internally displaced children “twice invisible” in a country’s – and the global education – picture. Hence they fall off the radar, and action to change their situations is less likely to be taken.
The online event will highlight key issues pertaining to the collection and dissemination of education data on internally displaced children, and will provide an opportunity to share practical recommendations and good practices on how to start bridging this knowledge gap. Particularly also linking concrete experiences with global initiatives by having actors working in the field.
Speakers at the session included:
- Harpinder COLLACOTT, Executive Director, United Kingdom
- Thomas Gass, Assistant Director General Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation SDC, Switzerland
- Christelle Cazabat, Research Manager, Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre IDMC, Germany
- George MOGGA, Director General of Planning and Budgeting, Ministry of General Education and Instruction MOGEI, South Sudan
- Jean-Claude NDABANANIYE, Senior Programme Specialist Crisis sensitive planning, UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning IIEP, Paris
- Christian STOFF, Head, Monitoring Evaluation Analysis and Reporting, Education Cannot Wait ECW, Geneva, Switzerland
Moira V. Faul, Executive Director of NORRAG, moderated the discussion. The session is a follow-up on the recommendations of the “Education in Emergencies Data Summit” held in Geneva in June 2019, which NORRAG co-organised with USAID, the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) and with the support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) at the Graduate Institute, Geneva.
The session is a key moment in a series of global actions that are bringing more attention to Education in Emergencies (EiE). In this context, two innovative partnerships were launched in 2021, supported by NORRAG and the Graduate Institute: the INEE Education in Emergencies Data Reference Group and the Geneva Global Hub for Education in Emergencies.
This session explored these two partnerships and other forms of collaboration between national Ministries of Education and humanitarian and development agencies, track progress towards the commitments made in the Data Summit in 2019, and increase the focus on the opportunities for data and information to inform action and increase investment (both on the ground and globally) in this sector.
NORRAG’s Missing Data project addresses the ways in which missing data continues to constitute a critical obstacle to achieving SDG 4. The challenges presented by missing education data can manifest as missing groups, missing types, and missing purposes. Read more about the project.
Video presentation of the panel:
