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	In the Middle East is a lost generation of unschooled children by Adel Abdel Ghafar, Fraus Masri Brookings Doha Center, AlJazeera, Education cannot Wait   Reaching 75 million children & youth living in crises. (Education Cannot Wait)   When conflict or crisis erupts, the educational needs of children and youth are often the last consideration – an afterthought following food, water, shelter and protection.   Right now, wars, natural disasters and other emergencies are multiplying throughout the world – more frequent, complex and disruptive than ever before. During these crises, children and youth frequently live in, or are displaced to contexts where governments cannot provide them with education services. In addition, education receives less than 2% of humanitarian aid, leaving an essential component of children’s future prospects underfunded and undervalued.   The result is that entire generations of children and youth are denied the right to an education.   More than 75 million children and young people (aged 3-18) are currently out of school in 35 crisis-affected countries. Girls are particularly disadvantaged, being 2.5 times more likely to be out of school than boys in countries affected by conflict.   This violates the rights of children and youth, increasing their risk of harm and leaving them exposed to threats of trafficking, child labour or child marriage. Fulfilling children’s right to be in school and learning helps to break the cycle of crises and delivers high economic and social returns. Education cannot wait – 75 million futures depend on it.   http://www.educationcannotwait.org/ http://www.unicef.org/media/media_91132.html http://nolostgeneration.org/   May 2016   In the Middle East is a lost generation of unschooled children, by Adel Abdel Ghafar, Fraus Masri. (Brookings Doha Center)   A catastrophic by-product of ongoing conflicts in the Middle East is a lost generation of unschooled children. These children find themselves, through no fault of their own, not only displaced but lacking the opportunity for proper schooling and thus, denied a chance to learn and develop the necessary skills to become fully functional members of society. This lost generation is the tragedy of our time.   According to a 2015 report by UNICEF, the United Nations children''s agency, conflict in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has driven 13 million children out of schools.   Unschooled children are not only a moral challenge, but also one that has negative short-term and long-term consequences both for the refugees, but also for their societies.   Education provides children with the necessary skills to develop into productive members of society. Unfortunately, refugee children fleeing Syria, Iraq, Palestine, and Yemen struggle to find educational opportunities in the countries where they settle.   In the most extreme cases, refugee youth have not attended school in years. For these children, the possibility of finding gainful employment as an adult becomes increasingly challenging.   Besides providing an education, schools serve an important function by socialising children. Because of ongoing conflicts, children are denied the opportunity to develop the necessary social and mental development skills that facilitate growth.   In addition, children in conflict zones face severe trauma through the loss of family members to violence.   Humanitarian efforts tend to focus on physical needs such as food and shelter, but there is less emphasis on dealing with the long-term effects of psychological trauma on children.   The lack of education, coupled with a sense of despair and hopelessness creates the perfect conditions for the radicalisation of refugee children. Without education, refugee youth will not have the economic opportunities provided to children in areas not disturbed by conflict.   UNICEF reported an increasing trend of child recruitment to fight for parties to conflict, especially in Syria.   Children tired of working long hours in sweatshops for little pay tend to find the offer to fight at a salary of $400 a month particularly enticing.   Gordon Brown, the former British prime minister and current UN Special Envoy for Global Education, argues that: "Displaced children are more likely to become the youngest labourers in the factory, the youngest brides at the altar, and the youngest soldiers in the trench."   Before the outbreak of conflict in Syria, the country commanded a 99 percent enrolment in primary school education.   The conflict in Syria greatly diminished this number, but the possibility to enrol these children in neighbouring countries could rectify the problem.   Jordan and Turkey have absorbed an estimated 200,000 and 300,000 children respectively in their schooling system, which has put an incredible strain on their existing educational infrastructure.   In Turkey, most classes are taught in Turkish, which poses a problem for students coming from Arabic speaking countries.   Although countries hosting a large number of refugees are now receiving increased funding from donors, funding gaps totalling hundreds of millions of dollars still hinder efforts to adequately educate refugee children.   Increased funding could build temporary schools, revitalise the curriculum, and train more teachers to handle the influx of children.   UNICEF''s "No Lost Generation" initiative should be revived. Beginning in 2013, the initiative helped fund 600 "school clubs", which provided remedial education for children missing class for extended periods of time.   It also facilitated the enrolment of children in Jordan and Lebanon. By revitalising this programme, funding for educational programmes in countries steeped in conflict and their neighbours would receive priority - ensuring the education for a generation of students vulnerable to the problems created by conflict.   The international community should push for the de-politicization of schooling and attempt to get both sides of any conflict to agree that children''s education should continue.   In Syria, where a number of areas remain under siege, schoolchildren should receive protection from local forces to attend schools. Unfortunately, children are routinely barred from crossing into towns held by opposing forces - and apart from one particular case - to take exams.   Additionally, global efforts should strive to create safe spaces for learning, as proposed by the "No Lost Generation" initiative. Even if these conflicts in the MENA region persist, children should not continue to suffer because of opposing political values.   The UN''s "Education Cannot Wait" fund that is currently being launched is a solid step in that direction. The programme is understandably Syria-heavy.   While it also mentions South Sudan and Nepal among other countries - there is minimal mention of Yemen, Libya, or Iraq, whose children remain among those highly affected.   Unfortunately, many worthy programmes are launched, but lose steam due to political deadlock and funding issues.   The "Education Cannot Wait" fund should be embraced and expanded as part of a long-term concentrated strategy to deal with the issue of unschooled children in conflict zones. Time is already running out. With each passing year, the lost generation keeps growing.   * Adel Abdel Ghafar is a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center. Fraus Masri is a research assistant at the Brookings Doha Center. Visit the related web page
	Kofi Annan victim of one of the greatest Fake News concoctions in History by Ian Williams Inter Press Service   Looking at the deserved outpouring of eulogies over Kofi Annan I could not help remembering the advice of the old Latin saying, “Say nothing about the dead unless it’s good.”   But one can’t help wishing that there had been more support of Kofi Annan when he was alive, not least when the Murdoch media Faux News fabricators persecuted him with the spurious Oil For Food scandal.   It was one of the greatest Fake News concoctions in history, almost up there with Iraqi WMDs, perhaps unsurprisingly since many of the sources for both were the same based on alleged UN corruption in the program that delivered food to Iraqi civilians in the face of US insistence on maintaining sanctions against the Iraqi regime.   They knew what they were doing: it was not just an individual they were slandering. Kofi Annan epitomized several facets of the role of a UN Secretary General, but none better than being an inspiring public face for the organization whose manifested dignity and integrity helped mitigate the sad reality of a body often hamstrung by the self-seeking sordid squabbles of its member states.   The attack was both an attempt to punish him for his temerity in saying that the Iraq war was illegal, and to challenge the prestige of the UN and the whole concept of international order.   The onslaught was all the heavier because they sought to demolish the reputation of someone who was the archetypal nice guy, who would have made a good electoral candidate. He remembered families and people, greeted everyone of all ranks affably and kept his cool.   The only time I saw him lose his temper was when he reprimanded the juvenile behavior one of the Murdoch press corps who was baiting him about trivia associated with the Oil For Food scandal. Some of the correspondents were shocked that when this animal was attacked he fought back. Others welcomed the well-merited comeuppance.   His original election had come about against the background of the Balkan Wars and it must be remembered that it was the result of an American veto against the reappointment of Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who suffered from a bipartisan alliance of Madeleine Albright and Republican Senator Jesse Helms, who were both incensed by the Secretary General’s refusal to bow to Washington.   Of course, that made Kofi Annan the American candidate, subject to some suspicion from other nations, and indeed his ideas of world governance and policy were not too far from the stated principles of the Clinton administration. However, as he was well aware, because an administration declared lofty ideals did not necessarily mean they would implement them in practice, and even more often they would he was alive.   Boutros-Ghali was also posthumously the subject of eulogies from many who stayed silent when he was under attack, since he confronted the same quandary as Annan: how to cope with a US that wanted to treat the UN as, not just an instrument of foreign policy, but as a foil in domestic politics.   The White House wanted to make reassuring liberal noises about stopping atrocities to one wing of American politics, while promising the isolationist wing that it would trim spending on the UN and would not risk American lives to implement policies that the US supported.   At the time of Rwanda, that entailed a Presidential Directive from Clinton that was in essence more isolationist than anything most of the Republicans could dream up: that the US would veto any peacekeeping operation that did not directly benefit US foreign policy objective, which did not at the time seem to include the prevention of genocide, as untold thousands of Bosniaks and Rwandans discovered   It was at first unsure whether Kofi Annan’s years of service in the UN were an asset or a disadvantage, but it became clear how useful they were, since he knew just how the organization worked and was all too aware of the competing pressures on UN staff, not least the political pressures.   And among those pressures was the major one: how to accommodate the US, which was essential for the effective functioning of the organization, while preventing the organization from becoming a mere instrument of US policies often opposed by most of the members.   He was no mob orator. He was not cut out for the bully pulpit or the soapbox. When he was first elected, his advisors pushed him into being coached for public speaking but gave up and people realized that his quiet authority was in some ways more effective than soaring rhetoric and inspired but content-free demagoguery. People had to strain to listen to him – and they did, because what he had to say was worth listening to.   His statements were carefully weighed before delivery and designedly non-provocative. They aspired to higher things, but they were definitive and authoritative, and usually soundly based both in ethics and his own pragmatic sense of what was possible. He was an accomplished tightrope walker, even he was wobbling by the end, since while most of the member states recognized the competing imperatives. American administrations, of all complexions have a notorious lack of empathy for other agendas beyond the re-election of the President.   People sometimes say that he was not outspoken enough, not loud enough, but that was actually a strength. When he spoke, it was not just a trite soundbite, he said what had to be said even it was sometimes unpopular.   When he came back from negotiating with Saddam Hussein and said it was a testament to the efficacy of diplomacy, not enough people listened to his corollary – when backed with the threat of force.   His other breakthrough was teamwork. He had risen through the UN ranks without acquiring the pompous self-importance of many promoted above their capabilities and assembled an articulate and confident team who could push out the envelope on events and say what needed to be said, without implicating him directly.   One of his landmark changes to UN culture was to open up a degree of transparency: Before only designated spokespeople were allowed to talk to the media but he mandated staff to respond to journalists’ enquiries as long as they did not purport to represent the organization’s views.   That posture of dignity allowed him to steer the landmark Responsibility to Protect resolution through the sixtieth anniversary summit and it is still a landmark even if many of those who did not have the political courage to oppose him and it at the Summit have done so much to frustrate it since. It allowed him to rally support for an ambitions world development agenda backed by a wide spectrum of disparate constituencies.   All idols have feet of clay, but for some the mud goes much higher than others. No one is perfect, high office demands compromises for practical achievements to win allies and majorities. But in office, on development goals, poverty, human rights, gender equality, Rwanda, Cyprus and many other issues, he advanced the UN agenda even as he rewrote it.   After leaving the UN he continued to do so, with the Elders and his own foundation. He was no mere bureaucrat, he was not after the big desk and the title, he wanted to contribute to the world and thought the SG’s office was the best place to do so.   His legacy will survives for sometime, but one must wonder how he would have coped with the present President who unlike Clinton is unable to betray his principles, since he does not seem to have any.   But it is perhaps not too late for the present Secretary General to study and emulate Kofi’s tradition of quietly but prominently presenting himself on behalf of the organization, and the team work that made it possible.   * Ian Williams is a former President of the UN Correspondents’ Association (UNCA). Visit the related web page
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