Educational challenges highlighted at World Humanitarian Summit

The underpinnings of the World Humanitarian Summit that took place in Istanbul on May 23-24 can be traced to years of vexation among NGOs, governments and U.N. agencies over failed humanitarian interventions. Some examples include:

The Fuller Project for International Reporting on the difficulties that Syrian refugee children face in accessing education in Turkey:

“Turkey has taken a central role in the response to the Syria crisis, hosting close to 3 million Syrian refugees – more than any other country. Some 330,000 children are already enrolled in Turkish schools, according to the education ministry. [Meanwhile] nearly 500,000 children remain entirely cut off from the education system. Many have been pushed into early marriage or the labor market, while others sit in temporary homes or roam Turkish streets.”

UNWRA’s commissioner general Pierre Krähenbühl on investing in the educational futures of Palestinian children trapped in conflict:

“UNRWA findings are deeply disturbing: 44 percent of UNRWA’s 692 schools across the Middle East – that’s a staggering 302 – have been directly impacted by conflict and violence in the past five years. In Syria, at least 70 percent of 118 UNRWA schools have at some stage of the war been rendered inoperative, either because they were impacted by violence or because we have used them as centers to house the displaced.”

This entry was posted in Humanitarian Aid, International Cooperation by Grant Montgomery.