African Union Commission Launches Continental Education Strategy for Africa 2026-2035 Education in Emergencies and Resilience Cluster

Author: Pragya Verma

September ##, 2026

HRRC affirms the right of children to education during emergencies, displacement, and conflict. HRRC supports efforts to protect learning continuity and ensure safe and inclusive education.

A young Congolese boy during a lesson at the Mugosi Primary School, which caters mostly for children of the Kahe refugee camp in the town of Kitschoro, in the north eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2011. [Image Credit: M.Hofer/Wikimedia Commons]

The African Union Commission (AUC) launched the CESA Education in Emergencies and Resilience (EiE) Cluster at the African Union Headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on September 18, 2026. The AUC established the Cluster in collaboration with the Department of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation (ESTI), African Union Member States, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and Save the Children International. 

The Continental Education Strategy for Africa 2026-2035 (CESA 26-35) was adopted in February 2025 by African Union Heads of state and government. It follows a previous strategy for 2016-2025 (CESA 16-25). CESA 26-35 aims to accelerate progress in educational outcomes and empower the African youth. 

The EiE Cluster supports the implementation of CESA 26-35 as a cross cutting mechanism for advancing equitable, inclusive, resilient and quality education systems across Africa. 

The cluster aims to safeguard learning continuity, strengthen institutional resilience, and protect learners and educators during emergencies including armed conflicts, forced displacement and climate-related shocks. It provides a platform for coordinated country level action and strengthens the national education capacity to prepare for, respond to, and recover from emergencies. 

Ms. Sophia Ashipala, Head of the Education Division at the African Union Commission, highlighted the four operational pillars at the launch that guide continental responses in conflict-affected situations. The pillars emerged from deliberations of the AU Peace and Security Council at its 1357^th meeting on August 3, 2026, on Education in Conflict Situations. These include:

• Protection: Ensuring schools and universities remain safe spaces to protect learners, teachers, and educational personnel.

• Continuity: Implementing distance learning and flexible delivery models and establishing the portability of academic records for displaced learners.

• Learning Recovery and Inclusion: Prioritizing foundational learning and structured catch-up programs for displaced youth, including refugees, internally displaced persons, girls, children with disabilities, and other vulnerable learners. 

• Financing and Accountability: Mobilizing domestic and international financing to embed resilience and crisis preparedness directly into national educational sector plans and budgets. 

In 2025, nearly 15,000 schools across West and Central Africa were closed due to violence and conflicts, affecting an estimated three million children. Since 2019, the number of school closures has almost doubled rising from fewer than 8,000 to over 14,800.

In Burkina Faso, attacks on schools have been linked to the abduction, threatening, and killing of related protected personnel. In Cameroon’s North-West and South West regions, children have been abducted, killed, and maimed while travelling to and from schools and during attacks on schools.

 Children and teachers who survive school attacks may suffer from health complications, long-lasting trauma, and stigma, making it even harder for them to resume education and rebuild their future.

At the launch, stakeholders representing AU Member States, Regional Economic Communities, UN agencies, civil society organisations, teacher unions, and youth representatives adopted a joint Outcome Statement committing to improve preparedness for education emergencies, sustainable financing, and greater accountability for implementing the Cluster’s commitments. 

 A key priority will be bringing the Cluster’s commitments to the country level, where Member States will be encouraged to integrate education in emergencies and resilience into national education sector plans. 

The AUC says the Cluster reinforces key normative instruments, which include the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, the Kampala Convention, the AU Humanitarian Policy Framework, and the Safe Schools Declaration. 

The Cluster connects these existing regional frameworks with practical efforts to protect and strengthen children’s rights and school protection. Going forward, it will prioritise the inclusion of refugees and internally displaced learners in national systems, with the aim of ensuring that learning can continue through crises and contribute to recovery and resilience.

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Glossary

• Disability - a physical, mental, cognitive, or developmental condition that impairs, interferes with, or limits a person's ability to engage in certain tasks or actions or participate in typical daily activities and interactions.

• Displacement - the situation in which people are forced to leave the place where they normally live.

• Humanitarian - having concern for or helping to improve the welfare and happiness of people.

• Internally Displaced Person - Internally displaced people (IDPs) have been forced to flee their homes by conflict, violence, persecution or disasters, however, unlike refugees, they remain within their own countries.

• Maimed - injured so severely that a part of the body no longer works as it should.

• Member State - a country that is one of several other countries that form a political or economic organization.

• Mobilizing - to organize or prepare something, such as a group of people, for a purpose.

• Refugees - Refugees are people who have fled their countries to escape conflict, violence, or persecution and have sought safety in another country.

• Resilience - the ability to be happy, successful, etc. again after something difficult or bad has happened.

• Stigma - a strong feeling of disapproval that most people in a society have about something, especially when this is unfair. 

• Vulnerable - capable of being easily hurt or harmed physically, mentally, or emotionally.