Progress Evaluation of the UNICEF Education in Emergencies and Post-Crisis Transition Programme (EEPCT) - Sri Lanka Case Study

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Education in Emergencies and Post-Crisis Transition (EEPCT) programme began in 2006 as a five-year, US$201 million-dollar partnership between UNICEF and the Government of the Netherlands, intended as a strategic intervention in support of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Education For All (EFA) movement. The interventions associated with the programme have been designed to achieve these targets by increasing institutional capacity and providing direct programme support. Global initiatives such as inter-agency Education Clusters and the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) are supported through programming in 39 countries.

In Sri Lanka, racial tensions between the two major ethnic groups, the Sinhalese and the Tamils, escalated from racial riots in 1983 to open armed conflict in the north and east until 2009. The 2004 tsunami added further to the country’s complex disaster and displacement burden. The military defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May 2009 contributed an additional 280,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) to the 300,000 who were already there. The education sector’s main concern was to ensure basic learning environments with suitable spaces, materials and psychosocial support for all children. Recently, the Government of Sri Lanka accelerated the resettlement programme, and by February 2010 over 174,000 IDPs had returned to their home communities, where housing and infrastructure are inadequate and livelihood options were absent.