AID TO EDUCATION

Emergency action, from 1946 to date THE EARLY YEARS Three emergency assistance actions in the aftermath of armed conflict marked the early years of UNESCO: educational reconstruction after the Second World War, the reconstruction programme in Korea, and aid to Arab refugees. In the first two cases, UNESCO’s role consisted of drawing up an inventory of needs and prompting the other Organizations to intervene. In the case of Palestine, as in that of Congo-Léopoldville a little later on, the Organization took on overall responsibility for an entire educational system. Post-war reconstruction activities are described below. Co-operation with UNRWA is described in the section on UNESCO in the Arab States and activities in the Congo in the section on UNESCO in sub-Saharan Africa. REBUILDING EDUCATIONAL, SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS AFTER THE SECOND WORLD WAR Even before the peace treaties had been signed, UNESCO had taken on the work of assistance and reconstruction in the fields of education, science and culture in Europe and in Asia. For these were areas which did not at that time benefit from the programmes of UNRRA, the United Nations agency entrusted with bringing material relief to nations devastated by war. In 1946, the first session of the General Conference requested the Director-General to set up an Information Centre at Headquarters where data could be collated of what assistance was needed by these nations, and also to launch a worldwide campaign to muster funds. This is how it came about that UNESCO produced a two-volume catalogue of needs country by country, The Book of Needs (1948), and distributed a Newsletter to potential donors. In 1947, the Organization chaired a Conference which created the Temporary International Council for Educational Reconstruction (TICER), a mechanism to provide a framework within which to mobilize and co-ordinate the efforts of the private sector. TICER assembled thirty-one international organizations grouping together more than 700 national organizations. UNESCO also co-operated with national bodies such as the American Commission for International Educational Reconstruction (CIER), and similar entities in Canada and the United Kingdom. CIER, alone, between 1946 and 1948 was able to secure contributions in materials and services from private institutions of more than $200 million. In this way, UNESCO contributed to setting up a worldwide chain of solidarity: Canada sent books to France and France sent books to the East; the United Kingdom sent apparatus for microfilms, and the United States of America provided tons of school equipment. UNESCO also put together toolboxes to assemble science teaching materials which it sent, with some items of laboratory equipment, to China, former Czechoslovakia, the Philippines, Poland, etc. The programme was not limited to books and equipment; there were also fellowships for training and further training of managers. During this period, UNESCO provided more than a hundred fellowships out of its own resources, several hundred others being proposed by the Member States. The first volume of Study Abroad, published in 1948, provided details of thousands of opportunities for study, fellowships and exchanges. In the context of its work for the United Nations Korean Reconstruction Agency (UNKRA) UNESCO mainly provided expertise drawing up in 1952 a survey of needs and a plan for educational reconstruction. Direct aid consisted of support for a fundamental education centre in Suwon and a contribution of $100,000 towards a printing works for school textbooks. In 1956, UNESCO provided aid to Hungary and Egypt. At the beginning of the 1960s, the Organization implemented a large-scale project in the Congo, aiming at rebuilding the country’s overall education system. Subsequently, educational activities were also undertaken to help refugees, and the African Liberation Movements, as well as in Vietnam.

In Greece, 1947-1948 Each of the organizations whose relief work is co-ordinated by the TICER since the end of the war makes a very important contribution to the rebuilding of educational and cultural institutions in war-devastated countries. All this is exactly what has been happening since 1947, thanks to TICER, with the exception that being a semi-permanent organization, TICER has certain advantages over the alternative system of looser and more occasional contacts. Its existence has resulted in the gradual growth of a close relationship between its members and UNESCO, through the widespread, friendly and permanent contacts it has maintained. In Palestine, 1950 The UNESCO Gift Coupon projects help children to obtain badly needed school equipment and materials for newly- established youth centres. In Korea, 1952 33% of primary schools destroyed, 60% of classrooms unusable, 80% of books and equipment lost, 38% of teachers missing, 25% of upper secondary schools demolished, 20% teaching staff missing. Such was the situation of Korea’s education system in 1952. In 1961, in the Congo- Léopoldville Refugees from Angola and Rwanda.

EMERGENCY ACTION IN THE 1980s and 1990s The volume of emergency aid provided by UNESCO to rebuild educational systems following disasters of various origins increases continually. The Organization intervened in Ukraine following the Chernobyl disaster, and in Armenia, Azerbaijan, the Caribbean, China, Nicaragua, and the Philippines in the aftermath of cyclones, floods and earthquakes. It has brought succor to the victims of civil war in a growing number of countries: Afghanistan, Angola, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burundi, Cambodia, Croatia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Liberia, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Yemen. These activities frequently cross borders, operations spilling over into refugee camps in neighbouring countries. This is how the UNESCO Programme for Education for Emergencies and Reconstruction (PEER) came into being in 1993 in Somalia, for Somalian refugee children in camps set up by UNHCR in Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya and Yemen. After the crisis in Rwanda, UNESCO co-operated with UNICEF to extend PEER to Rwanda and the camps set up in the United Republic of Tanzania and Zaire. Interventions of this kind fall within the framework of an inter-agency approach adopted by the United Nations for emergency situations, UNESCO’s specific thrust being the co-ordination of inputs to ensure the maintenance and the reconstruction of education services. Activities are varied and adapted to each situation: the first phase consists of sending a technical mission composed of planners, architects, and educators to make an on-the-spot assessment of the best way to intervene. This could turn out to be distributing instructional materials, supplying tent schools or prefabricated school buildings, psychological help for children suffering from the traumas of war, rehabilitation and vocational training of young victims, the mutilated, child soldiers and orphans, preparing teachers to cope with emergency situations, etc. Intervention has also taken the form of radio soap operas which carry messages about hygiene, infant health-care, the dangers of minefields, prevention of drug abuse, such as those broadcast in co-operation with the BBC in Dar and Pastho dialects for Afghan refugees. At the same time as attempting to solve crises, these programmes fall within the medium-term objective of training teachers, setting school administration back in place, and installing mechanisms for national inspection and curriculum development. Once the emergency situation comes to an end, these operations give way to more traditional forms of co-operation with UNESCO.

And today, in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burundi, Rwanda, Zaire and others Number of refugee and other persons of concern to UNHCR, 1975-1996.