10 September 2024 – Palais des Nations, Geneva

Event Concept Note

INTRODUCTION

The High-Level Event to commemorate the fifth International Day to Protect Education from Attack was held on Tuesday 10 September 2024 at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. It was co-organized by the Permanent Mission of the State of Qatar in Geneva, Education Above All (EAA), and the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA).

Co-sponsors of the event were the Geneva Global Hub for the Protection of Education in Emergencies, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva Call, Save the Children and the Safe Schools Declaration Core Group.

The event consisted of an opening video by Education Above All; a high-level segment with video statements from Ministers of two of the Safe Schools Declaration endorsing States (Nigeria and Qatar); a panel discussion with representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), UNICEF, Geneva Call, and UNESCO; and closing remarks by the Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights.

KEY HIGHLIGHTS

The event opened with the project of Education Above All Foundation’s video calling to “Unite to Protect” Education.

HIGH-LEVEL SEGMENT

This segment was moderated H.E. Mrs. Hend Abdalrahman Al-Muftah, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of the State of Qatar to the United Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva, who shared welcome remarks before handing over the floor to the Ministers of the Republic of Nigeria and of the State of Qatar.  

His Excellency, Prof. Tahir Mamman, Minister of Education of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (video recording)

“Any attack against education is an attack against humanity’s collective values”

Prof. Tahir Mamman emphasized the importance of education, calling it “one of the most important values for protecting humanity, advancing civilization, and empowering individuals.” Citing Nigeria’s 2014 Chibok school attacks, Prof. Tahir Mamman highlighted the country’s response, which included the creation of the Nigerian Safe Schools Rapid Response Coordination Centre. This initiative involves security agencies and widespread campaigns to protect schools, students, and educational facilities across the nation.

Her Excellency, Ms.  Lolwah Rashid Al-Khater, Minister of State for International Cooperation, State of Qatar (video recording)

“In times of crisis, education becomes as essential as food and medicine. It is a lifeline that must be protected and prioritized in humanitarian response”

Ms. Al-Khater underscored the critical importance of safeguarding education as a fundamental human right and an essential tool for building a better world. She emphasized its crucial importance in times of crisis, on the same level as food and medicine.

Citing GCPEA’s Education under Attack 2024 findings, Ms. Al-Khater highlighted the alarming rise in attacks on education, with more than 6,000 incidents recorded in 2022 and 2023, a 20% increase from previous years. She also spoke of several contexts, such as Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine, in which education systems have been devastated by ongoing conflicts and violations of international law, with schools targeted and millions of children displaced or denied access to education.

Ms. Al-Khater reiterated Qatar’s commitment to ensuring quality education for all through its partnership with Education Above All, as well as through various platforms, including UNGA, UNESCO, the Human Rights Council in Geneva, and their championship of the Safe Schools Declaration.

She called for immediate international action to protect education, urging states to safeguard the right to education even in times of armed conflict and to strengthen accountability for these attacks.

Ms. Al-Khater concluded her speech with a tribute to teachers, recognizing their crucial role in upholding education amid these challenging circumstances and emphasizing the need for collective efforts to ensure children everywhere can safely pursue their studies.

PANEL DISCUSSION

Mr. Pierre Krähenbühl, Director-General of the ICRC  

“We have to do much better in preventing and ending these wars who are proliferating around the planet… if they continue to proliferate there will be no positives on the horizon for education”

Mr. Krähenbühl discussed the ICRC’s direct experience with the devastating impact of attacks on education as they operate in some of the world’s most challenging conflict zones. He cited an ICRC survey on the needs of conflict-affected population, which revealed that families affected by war prioritize education, alongside safety, food security and medical care, prompting the ICRC to integrate education in its work.

Mr. Krähenbühl outlined ICRC’s efforts to protect education, including active engagement with states and non-state actors parties to conflict to remind them to uphold their obligations under IHL to safeguard schools, teachers, and students and prevent schools from being used for military purposes. ICRC also stands by to support states with legal reading of the Safe Schools Declaration and Guidelines for Protecting Schools and Universities from Military Use during Armed Conflict.

In closing, Mr. Krähenbühl urged for collective efforts and progress on preventing and ending conflict, noting that ICRC are exhausted by the number of raging conflicts and their duration and stressing that “any conflict that lasts for decades will devastate the country’s institutional backbone, with dire consequences for the future of education”.

Ms. Hazel De Wet, Deputy Director for Emergency Programmes, UNICEF 

“The more children are out of school, the less likely they are to return to learning. This is even more true for girls. During emergencies, enabling a child to return to learning quickly is critically important, ensuring continued learning amidst the crisis and providing multiple dynamic pathways for learning has proven to be vital in conflict situations”

Ms. De Wet emphasized that protecting education is a shared responsibility for collective efforts to safeguard it, particularly in the most vulnerable areas. She shared examples of UNICEF’s commitment to supporting education in protracted crises and in conflict, for example, through protecting educators and providing safe learning spaces for children to prevent school dropouts.

In 2023, UNICEF reached over 220,000 children in Sudan and 175,000 children in the Democratic Republic of Congo, through formal and informal education, safe learning spaces, WASH facilities and teacher trainings.

Ms. De Wet also emphasized UNICEF’s efforts to innovate learning for vulnerable groups, including children with disabilities, and to protect schools in line with international resolutions like Security Council resolution 2601.

Despite reaching 18 million children in humanitarian contexts in 2023, Ms. De Wet urged donors and partners to strengthen efforts to increase funding for the protection of education.

Finally, Ms. De We mentioned the agency’s advocacy efforts for the endorsement and implementation of the Safe Schools Declaration and the Guidelines for Protecting Schools and Universities from Military Use during Armed Conflict by working with governments, civil society, and international organizations to protect education from attack.

Mr. Alain Délétroz Director-General, Geneva Call 

“Convincing non-state armed groups to protect schools is an even greater challenge when states don’t abide by IHL obligations themselves”.

Mr. Délétroz spoke of Geneva Call’s mission of engaging with non-state armed groups in conflict zones to ensure their adherence to IHL and IHRL as well as to the principles of the Safe Schools Declaration.

He highlighted the challenge of protecting schools, particularly in the Sahel, where 9,000 schools are occupied by non-stated armed groups, with 6,000 in Burkina Faso alone.

He expressed concern over a rising trend of state-led attacks on education, which undermines efforts to convince non-state armed groups to abide by international law. 

He noted that support from the international community to enable ownership and implementation of the Safe Schools Declaration and the Guidelines for Protecting Schools and Universities from Military Use during Armed Conflict by non-state armed groups remains weak. 

Geneva Call’s Deed of Commitment the Protection of Children from the Effects of Armed Conflict aims to fill this gap by advocating for non-state armed groups to adhere to the Safe Schools Declaration’s commitments. While the majority of the 126 non-state armed groups that Geneva Call engages with have responded positively to this Deed of Commitment, implementing the obligations presents operational challenges.

New research reveals that, while many are aware of their obligations, structural differences are responsible for discrepancies in compliance, in particular where command and governance structures are fragmented. Examples include i) inconsistencies in using internal risk assessments to identify schools that might be at stake, ii) absence of protocols in place to vacate a school when it is used for military purposes and of an assessment tool to ensure that a school may safely re-open, and iii) absence of a consistent system to collect data and report on attacks against education.  

In closing, Mr. Délétroz stressed the urgent need for greater political and financial support to enhance commitments by non state armed groups and their accountability to protect education from attack.

Ms. Min Jeong Kim, Director of Education 2030 Division UNESCO 

“With 6 years left to fulfill the 2030 agenda and ahead of next year’s ten-year anniversary of the Safe Schools Declaration, it is time to translate commitments into action, scale up good and promising practices and ensure sustained actions”

Referring to increasing trend of attacks on education reflected in GCPEA’s Education under Attack 2024 report and the 2024 Report of the UN Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC), Ms. Kim, emphasized the urgent need to protect education from the devastating impacts of armed conflict, warning that these attacks jeopardize the achievement of SDG4 by 2030 and their effects, worsened by other factors, such as climate change, “could take years to reverse – if ever”.  

Ms. Kim highlighted two key instruments—the Safe Schools Declaration and UNSCR 2601—as vital for collective action. She described UNESCO’s multifaceted approach to protect education through the humanitarian, development and peace nexus. This includes deploying immediate learning solutions for Afghan girls and women, offering mental health support for children affected by conflict in Ukraine, and strengthening education systems in crisis-hit countries like Sudan and Yemen through joint humanitarian and development planning.

At the global level, she mentioned UNESCO’s collaboration with the UN Secretary-General’s Office for Children and Armed Conflict exemplified by the launch of a global teacher guide for the reintegration of former child soldiers into education.  She also spoke of UNESCO’s March 2024 Executive Board decision to develop a plan of action to prevent and protect education from attack.

Ms.  Ilaria Paolazzi, Senior Advocacy & Policy Adviser, GCPEA 

Wrapping-up the panel discussion, the moderator, Ms. Paolazzi welcomed the panelists’ strong calls to urgently reverse the trend of increasing attacks on education and military use of educational facilities through cross-sectoral partnerships, by strengthening the prevention of attacks on education and more broadly of conflicts, as well as strengthening accountability for attacks. She also welcomed the broad expressions of support and reinforced the calls to action with regard to the endorsement and implementation of the Safe Schools Declaration.

Ms. Nada Al Nashif, Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, OHCHR   

“Accountability and access to justice, including remedy and redress, are central to ensuring the right to education is realized, as was recognized by the UN Security Council through resolution 2601”

Ms. Al Nashif expressed concern that 72 million children were out of school in 2023 due to crises and conflicts, with attacks on schools, which she reminded are prohibited under IHL.

She urged states to proactively protect education from attacks through measures, such as ratifying the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Optional Protocols, endorsing and implementing the Safe Schools Declaration and the Guidelines for Protecting Schools and Universities from Military Use during Armed Conflict, implementing early warning systems and rigorously monitoring and collecting data collection on attacks to hod perpetrators accountable. Ms. Al Nashif emphasized the importance of accountability, referencing the UN Security Council Resolution 2601.

She also highlighted the crucial role of human rights and UN investigative mechanisms, including the Committee of the Rights of the Child and Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Commission of Inquiry on Syria in protecting the right to education in conflict.

Ms. Al Nashif mentioned OHCHR’s partnerships with the UN system and their ongoing efforts to protect children’s rights in armed conflict. She referred to the HRC57 panel session on Education for Peace that will feed into a report to the HRC in June 2025 on the impact of missed education years and the role of quality education in reconciliation and peace. She also mentioned a project with Education Above All on human rights and youth, referring to the development of an interactive version of the Youth Rights Advocacy Toolkit. A new Youth Advisory Board was recently established to ensure that this project is implemented for youth with youth.

In closing, Ms. Al Nashif called for collective efforts to protect education for all children everywhere, by supporting ongoing initiatives through firm action, beyond words.