Education in Emergencies and Post-Crisis Transition: A Synthesis of Main Findings from Evaluations 2004-2009

This report presents findings stemming from a desk review of evaluative studies on education in
emergencies and post-crisis transition. It was commissioned by the Evaluation Office at UNICEF
Headquarters in New York and was conducted from June to September 2009. Its main purpose was to uncover the current state of available evaluations in this sector to inform the contours of a forthcoming review of UNICEF’s and the Government of the Netherlands’ Education in Emergencies and Post-Crisis Transition (EEPCT) programme.1
The specific objectives of the desk review were to: (a) provide an overview of evaluation findings of education programmes, projects and interventions by UNICEF and other major international organizations in situations of emergencies, early recovery and transition; (b) summarize challenges and critical concerns common to the particular contexts of intervention; and (c) distil lessons learned and good practices to inform UNICEF current and future education work of particular relevance to the EEPCT programme.
This report reviewed 38 evaluative studies, of which only 24 specifically represented evaluations of education programmes and/or projects. These documents were identified through a search of the UNICEF Research and Evaluation Database, listings in Country Office annual reports, the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action (ALNAP) evaluation database, UNICEF Country and Regional Offices, and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs),2 including the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), International Rescue Committee (IRC) and Save the Children Alliance. This desk review was restricted to evaluations conducted between 2004 and 2009.
Due to time and resource constraints, the strategy and methods adopted for data collection precluded access to a potentially wider range of organizations and evaluations. Therefore, the sample of documents associated with this review might be less than exhaustive, and hence less than representative of existing information. This study is thus based on the data available, with a clear understanding of the implications of this limitation for the weight and significance of findings.
Evaluation findings were organized into two major sections: those emanating from evaluations of
interventions in sudden-onset emergencies; and those emanating from evaluations of interventions in contexts broadly defined as post-crisis transition, which comprises post-conflict early recovery, reconstruction and situations of displacement.