Transforming Systems in Times of Adversity: Education and resilience
Education plays a key role in strengthening human capital, gender equality and capacity to adapt to shocks and stressors.
The Case for Resilience
“Resilience” — defined by USAID as the “ability of people, households, communities, countries and systems to mitigate, adapt to, and recover from shocks and stresses in a manner that reduces chronic vulnerability and facilitates inclusive growth” — has gained increasing attention for its potential to shape a new paradigm of engagement in crisis and conflict contexts. This is out of recognition that shocks and stressors are increasing in frequency and intensity around the globe and often combine in complex and uncertain ways. They threaten the lives and livelihoods of people whom USAID and its partners seek to support and erode hard-fought development gains and past and present investments in education or other sectors.
For example, when education systems are unable to maintain equitable access to quality education for all in the midst of adversity, it can lead to prolonged education disruption, permanent dropout of learners from schooling, weakened learning outcomes and long-term psychosocial concerns for learners. Such consequences can have profound impacts for countries and regions of the world seeking to recover and transform after a crisis, particularly when entire generations of children may have never gone to school or had their schooling interrupted prematurely. It can undermine opportunities for future generations to be productive members of society and for the social contract between citizens and the state to be reinforced and strengthened.
Across USAID, resilience has become a priority. The Policy Framework, released in 2019 by the Agency, stresses the importance of resilience in ensuring that the journey to self-reliance, and Agency investments in this process, are not unduly compromised in the face of complex crises and natural disasters. Strengthening resilience by building capacity at various levels is seen as vital to enabling partner countries to prevent, mitigate and recover from crises that might otherwise set them back.
This focus on resilience is also reflected in USAID education programs at present. The USAID Education Policy argues that “education in partner countries must have the capacity to embed effective approaches to improving learning and education outcomes, to innovate and to withstand shocks and stresses” if the aim is to support sustained improvements in learning outcomes and equitable access for all learners.
To accomplish this, it is vital that education systems are themselves resilient and able to mitigate the impacts of crisis and conflict in a way that does not undermine current and past investments in the sector. This requires having in place and drawing on a range of capacities, assets, resources and networks at various levels of the education system in times of adversity.
At the same time, education has an important role and function to play in strengthening capacities that can support inclusive development and reduce chronic vulnerability in times of crisis and conflict. It is unique in that it is a service in demand and in need during times of crisis, as well as in its scale and reach across society. As such, education forms a critical platform for broader efforts across a range of sectors to improve capacities to absorb, adapt and transform shocks and stressors. Education also plays a key role in strengthening social and human capital, women’s empowerment and gender equality and internal dispositions to adapt and in improving societal knowledge and action about known risk factors in the environment.
Moving Forward with a Resilience Focus in USAID Education Planning
Programming for resilience focuses on identifying, supporting and enhancing capacities, assets, networks and resources, otherwise known as “resilience capacities,” that support the continuation, adaptation and/or transformation of services in response to shocks and stressors at all levels of the education system. It is an inherently strengths-based approach. While the longer-term intention is to reduce or transform factors that make particular learners, communities or institutions more vulnerable to shocks and stressors, the immediate focus should be to capitalize on existing and strengthened resilience capacities to do so. By working in this way, USAID education program efforts can serve an important function in strengthening the overall resilience of the education system as well as supporting and sustaining learning and well-being outcomes in times of adversity.
Doing so requires that USAID missions start with an understanding of contextual risks and their impacts on sectoral priorities and goals, because in all contexts where USAID operates, shocks and stressors are constantly impacting the education sector. The actual level of risk posed to learners, communities and institutions, however, is mediated by their respective levels of (a) exposure to these hazards and (b) sensitivity to shock(s) or stress(ors).
Consequently, programs need to leverage and strengthen assets that are already supporting key learning outcomes for vulnerable populations in contexts of adversity. Specific attention should be given to (a) ways in which schools and communities currently provide support and opportunities to students and teachers through actions or approaches that enable access, permanence and teaching and learning and (b) how institutions currently plan for and provide strategic direction; integrate learning, social-emotional well-being and protection-focused support; and provide or direct human, material and financial resources to support communities at greatest risk.
USAID education programming should ideally identify multiple entry points for action—at the institutional, community, household and individual levels—as part of any effort to build resilience with intentionality. Additionally, education programming requires integration, beyond its contributions to human capital, into broader portfolio approaches focused on resilience at a country-strategy level. Programming also needs to give explicit attention to strengthening relationships, trust, and supportive networks through education interventions—that is, to build social capital within and through education programming, particularly if the aim is to bolster the overall resilience of the system.
A key component of designing programming with a resilience focus is the opportunity to learn from success and failures, which requires innovation, variation and learning within education program approaches. These approaches make it possible to understand why certain elements in a system are less affected or more affected by the impacts of realized risk. Having this information will help to build the evidence base on education’s contributions to resilience and to better understand what works and why in particular contexts of adversity.
Key Recommendations
Based on the findings and conclusions of the white paper, following are recommendations in two major areas for the U.S. Government.
Policy Level
At a policy level, recommendations include the following:
- Frame resilience within USAID education policies and operational guidance as a mediating set of conditions, abilities, assets, strategies, networks and relationships — more simply known as “resilience capacities” — that help protect learning and well-being outcomes in the face of shocks and stressors
- Give greater focus and attention to acknowledging the full range of capacities that education can support (absorptive, adaptive and transformative), as well as the multiple levels of the education system at which resilience strengthening can operate (learners, households, schools, communities and institutions)
- In USAID operational guidance, recognize that resilience capacities may not always moderate the sensitivity or exposure of shocks and stressors among all citizens equally
- Avoid conflating resilience with self-reliance, with a clearer delineation and specification of how resilience-strengthening efforts may support the journey to self-reliance, but likewise, how the resilience of education (or other systems) on their own may not lead to country self-reliance
Office of Education, Regional Bureaus and USAID Missions
Within the USAID E3/Office of Education, Regional Bureau Education Teams and USAID Missions, there is a critical need for education programming to be positioned and leveraged in contexts where resilience is identified as a key focus or priority for the country or region. Recommendations to accomplish this include the following:
- Ensure that education teams are active participants in cross-sector resilience working and leadership groups
- Further strengthen the capacity and knowledge of key members of USAID on how to develop education programming within a resilience frame, drawing on the core messages and ideas of this white paper
- Identify and document a series of case studies of education programs or activities from within USAID Missions or its partners in which resilience has been a priority
- Give greater attention and emphasis to education’s function in supporting and strengthening social capital
- Strengthen the utilization of tools such as the Rapid Education and Risk Analysis and political economy analysis to capture key dimensions of risk and resilience through the program cycle, and potentially supplement this information with more participatory approaches that capture subjective dimensions of resilience
- Build the evidence base on education’s contributions to broader well-being and self-reliance outcomes in times of adversity
- Develop strong monitoring and evaluation guidance and systems to better measure the impacts of education interventions and activities from a resilience approach across multiple time horizons and to support learning and adaptive management within the Agency
- Ensure that program designs are coherent in resilience and education-sector outcomes at all levels of the education system (learners, schools, communities and institutions). Ensure that a clear theory of change connects these outcomes