New competition aims to find creative solutions to education challenges in conflict zones
UNICEF-UNHCR Joint press release
NEW YORK/GENEVA, 31 March 2015 – UNICEF and the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR today announced the launch of a new Amplify challenge – a call for ideas and innovations that could improve the delivery and quality of education for children and adults displaced by violent conflict.

“For children whose lives have been devastated by conflicts, education offers hope, stability and – increasingly – a means of delivering life-saving information. It is also an essential investment in the lives of individual children and future generations,” said Josephine Bourne, UNICEF Chief of Education.

“Less than 2 per cent of global humanitarian funding is allocated to education in emergency contexts, leaving an estimated annual gap of $247 million. Our challenge to designers and innovators is: How can we best preserve education – a basic human right – in difficult circumstances, using cost-effective methods without compromising the quality of learning?”

Through a collaborative process including research, brainstorming and refinement, Amplify hopes to find new economical, human-centred solutions to education in emergency situations, designed with input from the affected communities themselves and tailored to their unique needs. The Amplify programme is hosted by IDEO.org and OpenIDEO, and funded by the UK Department for International Development. The new challenge also includes expert guidance from UNICEF and the Innovation and Education units of UNHCR.

This is the third in a series of 10 challenges that aim to bring about positive change for people living in extreme poverty around the world. The first challenge focused on solutions that enable women to feel safe and empowered in low-income urban areas, the second sought to help parents and caregivers provide their children with the skills, competencies, health and habits crucial to early childhood development.

“The fact that half of the world’s 50 million refugees and displaced people are under the age of 18 is extremely sobering,” said Olivier Delarue, Lead of UNHCR Innovation. “This is why UNHCR is committed to providing access to quality education at the very onset of an emergency. Achieving this in the face of today’s increasingly complex humanitarian crises requires innovative approaches. We need to find creative solutions that are sustainable and, most importantly, place the needs of those who are forcibly displaced at the heart of the design process.”

For more information and to take part in the challenge, visit: http://ideo.pn/refugeeeducation