No Country on Earth Fully Respects Workers’ Rights, and It’s Getting Worse

By Pete Dolack

July 9, 2026

Source: Systemic Disorder

“Union Unity,” Digital, ChatGPT, 2024.

Class warfare continues to be waged incessantly. And that war’s offensives continue to be more intense. In just the past year, the world’s working people have seen more attacks on the rights of free speech and assembly, more attacks on civil liberties, more arrests and imprisonments, more refusals to engage in collective bargaining with unions and more technology used to monitor, discipline and silence workers.

None of this new, but it is getting worse. The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has issued its 2026 Global Rights Index report, and has been the case in past years, the annual report makes for grim reading. Once again, no country on Earth fully protects workers’ rights.

In past years, there were only nine countries that met the qualifications for the best category, “sporadic violations of rights,” defined as where “Violations against workers are not absent but do not occur on a regular basis.” That was the case for the 2023 and 2022 reports. This year? Only eight countries were found to be merely “sporadic violations of rights.” Those countries are Austria, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden and Uruguay, with Uruguay newly promoted to this level from a year ago.

Before we dip into the details, the larger picture is alarming. And the advanced capitalist countries, you won’t be surprised to know, are no exceptions. “In Europe and the Americas, workers’ rights are suffering an alarming decline. Both regions registered their worst average country rating since the Index began in 2014, and the increasing influence of the far right is putting workers and unions at risk in countries such as Argentina and France – two out of four countries to be downgraded in 2026,” the ITUC said in its report. Nor are the reasons behind these developments a mystery. “This year’s results reinforce the ITUC’s view that we are witnessing a global erosion of democratic principles – a ‘billionaire coup against democracy’ – funded by the rich and delivered by far-right and authoritarian leaders,” the report said. “As a snapshot of the violations of workers’ rights, the 2026 Index exposes a pattern that the powerful would rather keep hidden: the systematic weakening of democracy through attacks on workers, unions and collective bargaining. From repression of strikes to the erosion of legal protections and the criminalisation of unions, these are not isolated incidents but part of a broader strategy to silence dissent and entrench inequality.”

Fully half of the world’s national governments launched attacks on the rights to free speech and assembly, and half also arrested or detained workers, the highest total yet. Workers in three-quarters of the world’s countries had their right to union organizing impeded, also a record high, and 80 percent of countries restricted the right to collectively bargain. Worse still, 87 percent of countries violated the right to strike.

For the past decade, the number of countries that exclude workers from the right to establish or join a union, that violate the right to collective bargaining, that violate the right to strike, that arbitrarily arrest and detain trade union members, and that deny or constrain freedom of speech and assembly have all risen.

The global rise of hard right governments has gone hand-in-hand with the deterioration of workers’ rights. Argentina, where President Javier Milei has carried out his promise to impose the harshest variety of austerity that he can get away with, achieved the unprecedented “accomplishment” of falling in the ratings for two consecutive years. Argentina is now classified in the ITUC survey as a 5 rating, the worst category, representing the worst offenders where workers “have effectively no access to rights.” The ITUC lists Argentina has one of the world’s ten worst. “Milei has led a staunchly anti-union agenda since coming to power in 2023, undermining basic workers’ rights, civil liberties and union activity,” the Confederation reports. “Workers and unionists face systematic abuse and the shrinking of civic space. … Union offices, including the headquarters of the glassworkers’ union, were infiltrated and vandalised.” High union officials have fled the country after a police roundup. “Employers in Argentina engage in union busting and exploitative practices with impunity,” the report concludes.

In France, which also saw its rating decline, there is a “sustained deterioration of workers’ rights, an increasingly hostile political atmosphere, and incrementally regressive government policy since nationwide protests against pension reform deeply shook the political landscape in 2023.” Furthermore, in an atmosphere of the government attempting to impose regressive labor policies, “more than 1,000 Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) activists have fallen foul of state and employer crackdowns and a spate of violent attacks by far-right groups.”

And what of the two countries that love to claim their defense of democracy is unwavering and endlessly point fingers at other countries? The United Kingdom was rated as a “regular violator of rights,” a ranking of 3, the middle of the five categories. That was actually an improvement from a year earlier, with the ITUC crediting the outgoing Starmer administration for “repeal[ing] excessive restrictions to industrial action introduced in the previous Conservative government’s 2016 Trade Union Act.” And the United States? Once again given a rating of 4, the category for countries that have “systematic violations of rights,” the second worst ranking.

“In 2025, Trump stripped collective bargaining rights from more than a million federal workers across more than 30 agencies — perhaps the biggest act of union busting in the nation’s history,” the report said. “The move, reserved in the past for emergencies, was portrayed by the Republican administration as being in the interest of national security. It means entire departments, such as the Departments of State and Justice, and even the Food and Drug Administration, are excluded from this basic right.” The ITUC also cited Trump leaving the federal labor arbitration body, the National Labor Relations Board, without a quorum so that no cases brought by unions can be heard, as well as imposing an intimidating environment for immigrant workers, the excessive force used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and arbitrary arrests of union leaders. “The harm caused by these militarised enforcement practices extends well beyond these high-profile cases, as hundreds of other workers and trade unionists have been arrested and deported or detained in life-threatening conditions without charges or due process,” the report said.

The Global Rights Index ranks the world’s countries from 1 to 5, with 1 the best category, denoting “sporadic violations of rights,” defined as where “Violations against workers are not absent but do not occur on a regular basis.” Those are the aforementioned eight countries. (These are green on the report’s maps.)

Rating 2 countries are those with “repeated violations of rights,” defined as where “Certain rights have come under repeated attacks by governments and/or companies and have undermined the struggle for better working conditions.” Countries with this rating include Australia, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain. (These are yellow on the report’s maps.)

Rating 3 countries are those with “regular violations of rights,” defined as where “Governments and/or companies are regularly interfering in collective labour rights or are failing to fully guarantee important aspects of these rights” due to legal deficiencies “which make frequent violations possible.” Countries with this rating include Belgium, Canada, Chile, France, Mexico, South Africa and Switzerland. (These are light orange on the report’s maps.)

Rating 4 countries are those with “systematic violations of rights,” defined as where “The government and/or companies are engaged in serious efforts to crush the collective voice of workers, putting fundamental rights under threat.” Countries with this rating include Brazil, Greece, Israel, Peru, the United States and Vietnam. (These are dark orange on the report’s maps.)

Rating 5 countries are those with “no guarantees of rights,” defined as where “workers have effectively no access to these rights [spelled out in legislation] and are therefore exposed to autocratic regimes and unfair labour practices.” Countries with this rating include Argentina, China, Colombia, Ecuador, India, the Philippines, Russia, South Korea and Turkey. (These are red on the report’s maps.) In addition, there are countries with a 5+ rating, those with “No guarantee of rights due to the breakdown of the rule of law.” The dozen countries listed here include Afghanistan, Myanmar, Syria and Yemen.

The ITUC determines its ratings by checking adherence to a list of 97 standards derived from International Labour Organization conventions. Those 97 standards pertain to civil liberties, the right to establish or join unions, trade union activities, the right to collective bargaining and the right to strike. As a self-described confederation of national trade union centers, it says it represents 191 million workers in 169 countries and has 340 national affiliates.

Outside the scope of the International Trade Union Confederation’s report is the ability of workers to even have a job. Unemployment statistics notoriously greatly understate the number of people out of work and ignore altogether those with part-time work who need a full-time job. Even those lesser known statistics, such as such as the U-6 in the United States and R8 in Canada, that reveal higher numbers because of a more expansive definition of counting unemployment than the standard measures, undercount. One estimate of the true rate of un- and under-employment is 24.3 percent, calculated by the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity. The International Labour Organization estimates that 2.1 billion workers are employed informally, far fewer than those with regular work. The ILO notes that “Informality is typically associated with lower job quality due to limited access to social protection, rights at work, workplace safety and job security.” And all this at a time when the gigantic sums of money shoveled into the pockets of billionaires and other capitalists is so high that there is not enough outlet for investment or other productive use, and instead the money is shoveled into financial speculation — the volume of trading in currency (foreign exchange), stocks, bonds and their derivatives exceeds the size of the global economy in 10 business days.

As we yet again have cause to note, class warfare is intensifying and remains decisively one-sided. For how long?

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This article was originally published by Systemic Disorder; please consider supporting the original publication, and read the original version at the link above.Email

Pete Dolack

Pete Dolack is an activist, writer, poet, and photographer. He has been involved in various activist organizations, including Trade Justice New York Metro, National People’s Campaign, and New York Workers Against Fascism, among others. He has authored the books "It’s Not Over: Learning from the Socialist Experiment," which examines attempts to create societies outside of capitalism and explores their relevance to the present world while seeking a path to a better future and "What Do We Need Bosses For: Toward Economic Democracy," which analyzes past and present efforts to establish systems of economic democracy on a national or society-wide basis. He authored the book "It’s Not Over: Learning from the Socialist Experiment," which examines attempts to create societies outside of capitalism and explores their relevance to the present world while seeking a path to a better future.

How Unions Pave the Way to the American Dream

By Roxanne D. Brown

July 9, 2026

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

The vote was a key test of whether the UAW could springboard the Stand-Up Strike gains into new organizing. The union narrowly lost previous drives here in 2014 and 2019. Photo: Central Labor Council of Tennessee

Marcelo Assis recalled how his family arrived in the United States about 35 years ago, “poor as hell”—yet certain that America offered the path forward that they’d never find in their native Brazil or anywhere else.

The following years brought ups and downs, with Marcelo serving as a combat medic in the Army and then falling disillusioned with low-paying nonunion work that held him back instead of helping him move ahead.

But Marcelo ultimately landed back-to-back union jobs that catapulted him into the middle class and firmly anchored him there. Just as he clearly recalls his arrival in this country, Marcelo vividly remembers the moment years later when he looked around his newly purchased home, thought about the good life he provided to his family, and realized for the first time that he’d made it.

“This is the American dream,” he said to himself.

Marcelo’s experience shows how unions pave the way to a brighter future. That’s true even now—a time when the majority of working people feel as though the American dream has slipped out of reach because of rampant economic inequality, skyrocketing costs, and the callous indifference of the greedy rich.

In all, nearly 70 percent of Americans no longer see the country promising mobility or financial security to those who work hard and strive to get ahead, according to a January 2024 ABC News/Ipsos poll.

A separate survey, conducted in conjunction with the nation’s 250th birthday by AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, found that half of respondents lost faith in the American dream. Many see America working for the wealthy, not people like them.

But Marcelo, president of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 12000 and a mechanic at Southern Connecticut Gas, will be the first to say it doesn’t have to be this way. After helping him fulfill the American dream, the union now enables him to hold on to it.

A USW contract provides Marcelo with the good wages he needs to ride out Donald Trump’s inflationary economy, including the runaway costs of groceries, utilities, and house insurance. It affords him retirement security even as Republicans threaten to cut lifelines for the elderly.

The contract delivers quality, employer-sponsored health care, while more and more Americans today have no choice but to put off doctor’s visits or treatments because of the spiraling costs.

“There’s the stability of knowing you have benefits,” Marcelo said of the contract, which he and his coworkers negotiated. “You don’t have to worry.”

This is all fabulous. But it isn’t unique.

Union members across the country make significantly more money than their non-union peers. They’re also more likely to have family leave, paid time off, and work-life balance. This all adds up to cars in the garage, summer vacations, and sports leagues for the kids, along with all of the other pluses that make life worth living.

This is what independence looks like. Marcelo simply calls it the “union life.”

There’s more.

Because unions provide a voice on wages, safety, and other issues, they empower workers at a moment when a depressing sense of helplessness haunts many other Americans.

Union members also forge a bond that transcends the shop floor. Everyone looks out for everybody else, and that’s a formidable counterweight to the epidemic of loneliness and isolation also plaguing the country right now.

Even better, this shared identity galvanizes union members to fight together for the greater good and to assert an ownership stake in their communities, often through the kind of volunteer work and political advocacy that Local 12000 members do.

“Doing it together makes it a much easier climb than doing it by myself,” Marcelo said of the solidarity uniting hundreds of his coworkers.

It’s a message that’s resonating with the growing number of workers weary of working their tails off, only to fall further behind while the rich get richer.

Polls show record levels of support for unions, and workers in every part of the country are joining them to take the future into their own hands.

The American dream endures. We just have to stand together to claim it.Email

Roxanne D. Brown

Roxanne D. Brown is the international president of the United Steelworkers Union (USW).

Macron says Syria must not be destabilised after bombs wound 18

French President Emmanuel Macron warned on Tuesday that Syria must not be destabilised after twin bomb attacks near the Damascus hotel where he spent the night, during a landmark state visit to a country emerging from years of civil war.

Issued on: 08/07/2026 - RFI

Emergency personnel work as smoke and fire rise at the site where explosive devices blew up near a hotel where French President Emmanuel Macron was meant to be staying, in Damascus, Syria, in this screengrab obtained from a video, July 7, 2026. © 路透社图片

The attacks cast a shadow over the first trip of a European Union head of state since Bashar al-Assad was toppled in late 2024, as President Ahmed al-Sharaa tries to rebuild the country's image after more than a decade of conflict.

The two leaders vowed to step up economic and diplomatic ties with new ambassadors to be installed in each country.

In a joint press conference with his Syrian counterpart, Macron said we must "not let ourselves be destabilised" by such attacks, before which he had already left for the presidential palace in the heart of the Syrian capital, and reiterated Paris' support for the country.

Sharaa saluted Macron's "courage" for carrying on with his visit despite the bombings.

France's President Emmanuel Macron and Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa shake hands on the day they meet in Damascus, Syria, on 7 July, 2026. REUTERS - Mahmoud Hassano

A team of French press agency AFP saw Macron arrive for a meeting with Sharaa, while other journalists heard at least one blast echo through Damascus before seeing a plume of smoke rising near the hotel, where security forces closed a road and ambulances rushed to the scene.

Syria's interior ministry said one bomb had been placed inside a car parked on the side of a road, while the second was planted in a garbage container.

It said they exploded "while preparations were underway" to dismantle them.

Syria state media said the blasts wounded 18 people, including four police officers.

An AFP photographer near Syria's tourism ministry, opposite the hotel, saw windows damaged by one of the explosions, amid a heavy security presence.
Economic forum

France's Elysee Palace said Macron would continue his trip until his expected departure on Tuesday evening, when he travels to Ankara for a NATO summit and holds talks there the following day with Turkey's president.

The explosions are the second in the Syrian capital since Thursday, when 10 people were killed in a bombing in a Damascus cafe.

The French president had postponed announcing the date of his visit until his plane landed on Monday, for security reasons.

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani said that Macron's visit marked a "pivotal point" in the two countries' relations, vowing to continue to "confront terrorism in all its forms".

Sharaa also announced "our agreement to begin the process of exchanging resident ambassadors between Damascus and Paris as soon as possible, signalling the return of diplomatic relations to their normal state".

The blasts came moments before Syrian state television announced Macron's arrival at the palace.

The visit included an economic forum during which the two sides signed 15 bilateral agreements in several sectors, including civil aviation, health, banking, water infrastructure and roads, although French investors remain cautious about the situation.

"After the Strait of Hormuz crisis, the world realises the value of a safe and stable corridor," Sharaa said at the forum.

"Here the importance is highlighted of the geography of Syria, which today has regained its vital role as an indispensable link in the global corridors market."

Macron was accompanied by several economic players including Rodolphe Saade, chief executive of maritime transport giant CMA CGM, and TotalEnergies head Patrick Pouyanne.

Before the Damascus blasts, Pouyanne said that "the security situation still doesn't allow us to operate, but I think it is a positive initiative to come here, to Damascus".

TotalEnergies to discuss Syria offshore exploration, still wary of insecurity

TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné said security concerns still rule out a return to onshore oil operations, but confirmed the French company is rebuilding its Iraq-Syria oil transit routes.


Issued on: 08/07/2026 - RFI

France's President Emmanuel Macron and Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa shake hands on the day they meet in Damascus, Syria, on 7 July, 2026. REUTERS - Mahmoud Hassano

Pouyanné, said on Tuesday that he would discuss signing an offshore exploration contract with Syrian officials, but added that lingering insecurity meant a return to onshore oil activities was still not a viable option.

The CEO was accompanying French President Emmanuel Macron on his visit to the country as part of a business delegation, but the meetings were overshadowed by bomb attacks in the capital Damascus on Tuesday.

Prior to pulling out of Syria in 2011 owing to EU sanctions, Total produced around 30,000 barrels of oil per day in the country's east, as well as some gas.

"Clearly the security situation still does not allow us to work here today," Pouyanné told journalists in Damascus.

"Today the sector is in poor condition. Various groups continued producing during the conflict, but in a completely irregular way. Frankly, Syria is not a major oil story," he said.

Pouyanné was speaking shortly before the bomb attacks. A Total press representative declined to comment on whether his schedule had been affected by the incident.

The blasts wounded 18 people near the Four Seasons hotel, where Macron had spent the night. Macron, whose motorcade had left the hotel shortly before the blasts, did not hear the explosions. He pressed ahead with his visit, meeting President Ahmed al-Sharaa at the presidential palace.

Offshore exploration

Total signed a memorandum of understanding with the Syrian Petroleum Company in May to explore an offshore block in the Mediterranean.

"Syria's offshore area has never really been explored historically, so we have partnered with other companies to look into it. We will discuss it today with our Syrian counterparts to see whether we can move towards a contract," Pouyanné said.

TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne on 23 March, 2026. 

REUTERS - Danielle Villasana

"Obviously, we'd rather find oil than gas, but in the eastern Mediterranean most discoveries so far, in Cyprus and Israel, for example, have been gas," he added.

Total has also recently spoken about the need to build pipelines through Syria to transport oil from Iraq as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz in the wake of the US-Israeli war with Iran.

Pouyanne reiterated on Tuesday that projects to rebuild oil transit routes between Iraq and Syria, such as the Kirkuk-Baniyas pipeline, were the priority.

No project site visits were planned for Total during the trip, the CEO said, because the terrain was not safe enough to send teams in.

"We need to give the government time to establish control over the country, we also have to be realistic with a country emerging from 15 years of civil war. We need patience, this will be part of our discussions," he said.
Looking to rebuild

France and Syria will begin restoring €51 million in confiscated Rifaat al-Assad assets, the Elysée said.

Macron said France was working to redefine its security and military cooperation with Syria, including possible support from French special forces in the fight against Islamic State, which has claimed several attacks on Syrian forces this year.

Posting on the social network X shortly after the blasts, Macron said his visit was continuing and praised the "dignity, courage and determination" of the Syrians he had met.

Rebuilding Aleppo brick by brick

"We are not naive about the risks, but they are being managed," Macron

said later in a news conference with Sharaa. "Certain groups" sought to prevent "Syria's full and complete reintegration into the international community", he added.

Macron led calls for the lifting of Western sanctions on Syria last year, and said France was ready to help rebuild Syria's economy and banking sector.

The Elysee said the logistics company CMA CGM signed a partnership deal with Syria, including air cargo freight handling at Damascus airport, and that France and Syria would start a process to restore to Syria €51 million of assets confiscated from the late Rifaat al-Assad, Bashar's uncle.

What Is Humanitarian Education And Does It Help Build Peace? – Analysis

July 8, 2026
By Chloe Bruce

Key Takeaways

Humanitarian Education Goes Beyond Access — It provides schooling in emergencies while also teaching peace, resilience, psychosocial support, and humanitarian values to help children recover from conflict and displacement.

It Plays a Vital Role in Crises — Education in emergencies protects children from exploitation, offers normality and hope, and is a top priority for children in conflict zones, yet it receives only 3% of humanitarian aid.

Significant Limitations Remain — Chronic underfunding, short-term projects, donor biases, neutrality constraints, and weak long-term evaluation limit its ability to build lasting peace and sustainable education systems.

Humanitarian organizations invest in education to promote safety, resilience, and social cohesion, but researchers continue to debate its long-term impact on conflict and human well-being.

Humanitarian education refers to educational initiatives developed or supported by humanitarian organizations to reduce suffering, protect vulnerable populations, and help communities recover from conflict and disaster. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees defines humanitarian education as an initiative that “is implemented in a humanitarian context and is inclusive of refugee and other marginalized learners.”

With wars and conflicts becoming increasingly common in the 21st century, education has taken on greater significance. According to a 2025 United Nations article, of the 234 million school-age children affected by conflict worldwide, 85 million are completely out of school. Helena Murseli, global lead of the UNICEF Education in Emergencies team, called the situation “unprecedented.” “These are not isolated incidents. They are part of a global pattern of escalating conflict that affects children’s right to learn,” she said.

There is an urgent need to help develop spaces to provide a caring environment, especially for children experiencing conflict and displacement. “Refugee children deserve an education of quality that will last them a lifetime. Education must be an integral part of our response to emergencies, not an afterthought that falls gradually into neglect,” states the UN Refugee Agency.

Humanitarian education encompasses a wide range of educational goals, teaching methods, and pedagogical approaches. To understand its effectiveness, this article examines its purpose and ultimate goal, its link to the humanitarian mandate to reduce conflict and human suffering, and, most importantly, whether it has achieved its objectives.

Why Humanitarian Education Is Important

Using education to develop a peaceful society has been foundational to the concept of schooling throughout human history. Two of history’s most prominent teachers, Confucius and Plato, both spoke of the purpose of education as creating “harmonious societies.” Over time, education was institutionalized, first by religious bodies and then by political ones. Colonialism rooted these educational structures worldwide. A 2023 Brookings article by Ghulam Omar Qargha and Emily Markovich Morris, from the Center for Universal Education, states, “In most countries under colonial influence, the colonizing forces used modern schooling to develop a workforce in the colony, spread culture and values, control the local populations from opposing colonial rule, and create a sense of national unity among colonized peoples.” Those purposes still rigidly define mainstream education today.

In the 20th century, following two catastrophic wars that engulfed large parts of the world, alternative models developed to recenter the role of education in nurturing peaceful, nonviolent societies. The United Nations created UNESCO to ensure a “peaceful coexistence between nations,” with the motto that “[s]ince wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.” This helped pave the way for international organizations to highlight the importance of education, not only to sustain peace in conflict areas but also as a means to build a safe and nurturing environment for children in these countries and regions.

On a global scale, humanitarian educational endeavors focus on highlighting the value of education and ensuring universal access to it. Humanitarian education comes under the umbrella of Education for All (EFA). “Education for all is a principle advocating that all children, young people and adults should have access to quality education, regardless of background or circumstance,” the UNESCO website explains. The EFA declaration affirms that “education can help ensure a safer, healthier, more prosperous and environmentally sound world, while simultaneously contributing to social, economic and cultural progress, tolerance and international cooperation.” This shows that the international community’s push for wider participation in education stems from the idea that a more educated world is a more peaceful one.


There are, however, several limitations to this idea and its implementation. As UNESCO notes in its blog about the links between education, violence, and well-being, despite evidence that higher levels of basic education are associated with reduced national violent conflict, this claim remains ambiguous.

Although the number of people who receive at least a basic education has reversed since 1800, from one in five receiving a basic education to one in five who have not received any formal education, according to 2020 figures analyzed by Our World in Data, there is no way to prove this is a direct result of humanitarian education initiatives. The sharp uptick in education post-World War II suggests that the global shift in perceptions toward education, of which the UN was an integral part, has contributed to increased access to education. Other important developments include the recognition of education as a human right, which helped pave the way for another key humanitarian educational concept: education in emergencies (EiE). In her article in the Comparative Education Review, Julia C. Lurch emphasizes that “rights-based conceptions of education provided a powerful cultural frame that helped legitimate greater attention to EiE.” Education in emergencies has since become another pillar in humanitarian organizational responses to conflict.

Girls are often disproportionately affected in humanitarian emergencies. According to the UN Girls’ Education Initiative(UNGEI), girls are among those most excluded from education during crises and are especially vulnerable to dropping out of school. To cope with this situation, the UN argues that “Education in emergencies should become an integral part of a long-term strategy to develop inclusive education systems in countries affected by armed conflict.”

The Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE), establishedfollowing the 2000 EFA conference in Dakar, promotes and helps to guide frameworks and approaches to EiE. The INEE states that providing education to children impacted by conflict helps reduce their suffering: “Education in emergencies provides physical, psychosocial, and cognitive protection that can sustain and save lives.” It further states that when parents and children living in conflict situations were asked what they most needed, they said they wanted to continue their education. “According to 8,749 children caught up in 17 different emergencies—ranging from conflict to protracted crises and disasters—who took part in 16 studies by eight organizations covering 17 different emergencies, 99 percent of children in crises see education as a priority,” states the INEE.

Unfortunately, education programs are facing dramatic cuts. “Today, only 3 percent of humanitarian aid goes to education. Yet the children most in need of a good education are also at greatest risk of having their learning disrupted, whether by conflict, violence, pandemics, climate, or other crises,” according to the World Bank.

Putting the long-term effects of this lack of funding into perspective, Murseli said, “We’re talking about 234 million children’s future and ultimately, global stability and development. The cost of inaction far exceeds the investment needed to get every crisis-affected child learning.”

An article in the Human Rights Education Review shows that humanitarian education not only teaches children basic subject concepts but is also essential for teaching school-age children how to exercise their human rights while respecting the rights of others.

Restoring Access to Education

Humanitarian organizations’ efforts to promote education go beyond merely advancing the idea of education; they also involve physically restoring access to education in disaster zones. For example, UNICEF, the World Food Program, and Save the Children, funded by the World Bank, helped rebuild Yemen’s education system between 2021 and 2024, following decades of instability, conflict, and famine. While there is not sufficient evidence of this project’s success, it aimed to rehabilitate 1,000 schools across Yemen, pay teachers incentives to ensure attendance, build rural teaching capacity, provide learners with equipment and healthy snacks, and train teachers to improve their ability to teach literacy and numeracy.

“Yemen’s education system continues to face immense challenges. More than 2.5 million children are currently out of school, while 2,375 schools have been damaged or destroyed, severely limiting access to safe learning environments across the country. To support the recovery of the sector, the National Education Sector Plan 2024–2030 was launched in 2025, defining national priorities and guiding international support for rebuilding Yemen’s education system,” states an April 2026 UNESCO report.

According to research by the Global Education Cluster, a forum for coordination and collaboration on education in humanitarian crises, the affordability of educational supplies and the lack of schools in the community are key barriers to accessing education. There, meanwhile, seems to be a division of opinion on the effectiveness of such educational initiatives.

As Maha Shuayb, director of the Center for Lebanese Studies, explains in her article for The New Humanitarian, educational initiatives do not always succeed. Her review of EiE for Syrian refugees displaced in Lebanon found that the Lebanese state education system could only accommodate 50 percent of school-age Syrian refugees, which resulted in learners being split into morning and afternoon shifts, with the afternoon cohort experiencing fewer positive outcomes than the morning shift. This resulted from the incompatibility between the educational needs of displaced people and the Lebanese school system.

Due to national regulations, lessons could only be taught by Lebanese citizens; students had to learn some subjects in French or English, even though most spoke Arabic as a first language. International donors funded this initiative and did not sustainably improve the system to build long-term capacity. “Ten years later, the results speak for themselves. Syrian refugee enrollment in Lebanese state schools is below 30 percent, with less than 4 percent progressing to secondary education.” She argues that this approach to providing education in emergencies is inherently flawed, as “85 percent of the refugee population is hosted in low- and middle-income countries, where educational systems may already be strained: Enrolling children in a struggling system is extremely challenging.”

On the other hand, the EiE practitioners insist that this education saves lives. In a working paper, Christopher Talbot, who was a co-founder of the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies, argues that “it also sustains life by giving children a sense of the restoration of normality, familiar routine and hope for the future, all of which are vital for mitigating the psychosocial impact of violence and displacement for individuals and whole communities.” Accessing education and reestablishing safe routines can therefore vastly reduce human suffering at a time when children are especially vulnerable to situations resulting in child marriage, child labor, and recruitment into groups supporting violence. Yona Nestel, a senior education adviser at Plan International Canada, writes that “Education in emergencies is often a humanitarian afterthought, even though it has been demonstrated as the most effective way to normalize children’s lives and help them recover from trauma.”


Talbot also states that being enrolled in education can help children avoid danger: “Children and adolescents who are not in school are at greater risk of violent attack and rape, and of recruitment into fighting forces, prostitution and life-threatening, often criminal activities.” He also claims that education initiatives can help restore peace in conflict situations and disaster-affected societies by preparing for reconstruction and developing economically and socially valuable skills.

In his 2011 article on EiE Best Practice, Phillip Price points to examples of learning about landmine awareness and sexual health, and how these lessons reduce death and injury later on in life. This highlights the other, arguably more important, side of humanitarian education initiatives: the content of education. Despite EFA and EiE’s focus on expanding access to education, humanitarian organizations often do more than just build capacity to educate; they deliver their own bespoke education curricula aimed at reducing human suffering and building more peaceful societies.

Restoring access to education is only one part of humanitarian education. Once children and communities return to classrooms or other learning spaces, humanitarian organizations face another question: What should be taught? Beyond literacy and numeracy, many organizations have concluded that education in crisis settings should also help learners cope with trauma, rebuild trust, resolve conflict, and strengthen social cohesion. This has led humanitarian organizations to develop specialized educational programs that draw on peace education and other learner-centered pedagogies.

Shaping Peace Education

Humanitarian organizations generally pursue these broader educational goals through three complementary approaches: training new humanitarian practitioners, teaching humanitarian principles and international humanitarian law, and adapting peace education through established learner-centered pedagogies.

Humanitarian organizations and educational institutions teach how to do humanitarian work. This includes learning a variety of practical skills, such as international law, frameworks, project management, and logistics, while instilling humanitarian values like accountability, trust, and fairness. A substantial amount of this learning takes place online, so it is accessible to a wide range of practitioners worldwide. Evaluations of some of these courses, including a humanitarian leadership diploma for practitioners in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and a course run by Médecins Sans Frontières in Italy, found them effective at building humanitarian knowledge and capacity among participants.

The extent to which such capacity building leads to peace in the region has not been clearly assessed. But it is considered better for the sustainability of humanitarian work among local populations. Scholar Séverine Autesserre has writtenseveral books highlighting the importance of localization in humanitarian work and its relationship to genuine, long-lasting peace.

A key part of the curriculum for these courses focuses on developing an understanding of humanitarian principles. They teach external practitioners and staff members to internalize values such as egalitarianism, respect, and empathy through practical skills like active listening and problem-solving. These skills are also taught to younger people through educational programs, such as the Youth as Agents of Behavioral Change (YABC) offered by the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). This program aims to teach young people “critical thinking, dropping bias, collaborative negotiation, mediation, and enhancing personal resilience,” along with other practical skills similar to those taught to humanitarian practitioners. This has led to the establishment of the final pillar of humanitarian education: teaching peace to the general population. Organizations use “peace education” pedagogy, combined with their experience teaching humanitarian skills and values, to develop learners’ willingness and instill the ability to be peaceful.


Peace education developed alongside alternative educational theories in the 20th century. While Montessori and other educational approaches promote education that centers on the needs of the learner, peace education focuses on the needs of peacebuilding. As Yi Yu and Michael Wyness explain in their journal Social Sciences, “Across socio-political contexts, peace education may target micro-level interpersonal skills, such as conflict resolution, or macro-level societal change, including altering collective narratives, breaking down stereotypes, and promoting human rights.”

Rather than representing a single distinct pedagogy, humanitarian education combines multiple leading learning theories to refine peace education into approaches that help rebuild societies after conflict and disaster. It combinesaspects of psychosocial competencies and social-emotional learning (SEL) pedagogy to develop learners’ self-esteem and psychological resilience. Humanitarian education inculcates these pedagogies, believing that establishing a strong sense of self, combined with a deep understanding of emotions, is vital to building empathy and healthy coping mechanisms in the face of extreme stress.

It also seeks to teach people how to manage the trauma they’ve experienced, which is often a source of perpetuating conflict. It draws on other pedagogies, such as intercultural learning, to build the capacity to understand opposing views, aiming to bridge political or ideological differences between groups.

Does Humanitarian Education Work?

The YABC program has been implemented in several countries since its release in 2008. Still, aside from qualitative accounts of how the learning personally impacted some participants, there has been little evaluation of its impact on the development of peaceful societies. Beyond this program, the IFRC has developed educational programs aimed at teaching international humanitarian law since the early 2000s, with other organizations such as the British Red Cross and the Canadian Red Cross. According to testimonies in a 2025 blog post, IHL education helped develop empathy and understanding among students, especially toward people from refugee backgrounds. However, to really understand if humanitarian education is effective in building peace, these initiatives need to be thoroughly assessed.

Save the Children ran a program in Syria in 2022 called “The Summer Club,” which was structured as a “12-session child resilience program for… 200 children. The child resilience program included activities in problem-solving, improving knowledge of the self, healthy expression of feelings, effective communication, and identifying and dealing with abuse and bullying.” This program was likely modeled after Save the Children’s longstanding Youth Resilience Program. In investigating the efficacy of this project, Save the Children found high engagement in the program, with “99 percent attending more than 70 percent of all activities. Facilitators’ observations also noted that the children were deeply engaged during the sessions.” They also analyzed how far learning goals were achieved, stating that “100 percent out of the 65 percent of targeted children had better awareness of child protection threats and skills to deal with them, when comparing pre-test to post-test at the end of Summer Club.”


They also conducted third-party monitoring to determine that “Summer Club had increased their ability to understand school subjects and that their performance at school had improved from participating in Summer Club.” This program was initiated by Save the Children Denmark in collaboration with a local partner. According to them, while the local partner was heavily involved and provided continuous feedback, there is little information available on long-term outcomes or the program’s sustainability. A wider evaluation of how the education of these 200 children impacted broader peace in the region was not conducted.

We can compare this small program to a larger group of IRC initiatives in the same region. The “Ahlan Simsim” project has reached “over 1.3 million children and caregivers with direct services for families across Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.” It involves a structured 12-week intervention in which children watch an Arabic-language version of Sesame Street to learn social-emotional skills and improve literacy and numeracy. The show was called Ahlan Simsim or “Welcome Sesame” in Arabic. According to the IRC, their study “found that watching the Ahlan Simsim show had a significant impact on children’s foundational social-emotional skills, such as identifying emotions and applying coping strategies.”

They also broadcast the television show across the MENA region, reaching another 23 million children. IRC claims that “Watching Ahlan Simsim helps children identify emotions of fear and frustration and teaches them coping strategies, like pausing to breathe in emotionally stressful situations. … [N]ew characters join familiar faces like Elmo and Cookie Monster to teach children important lessons and promote healthy early childhood development. These new characters are designed to be relatable to children living in vulnerable situations.”

NYU Global TIES for Children studied some of the Ahlan Simsim programs. One of the programs called “Reach Up and Learn” targeted caregivers of children under the age of three. “In this program, trained health outreach staff called caregivers to share their regular curriculum of health tips, and integrated into this 7–10 minutes of Ahlan Simsimparenting guidance per week. While researchers found no significant impact on parenting behaviors, pointing to the limitations of a short, once-weekly, audio-only interaction, they did find the program reduced caregiver depressive symptoms.” This candid sharing of results helps to understand how these programs work to improve learning outcomes. In the case of another program evaluated, which involved remote teaching via WhatsApp, “[r]esearchers found that this program produced statistically and developmentally significant impacts on children, particularly for literacy, numeracy, and social-emotional skills. The impact was comparable to global studies of year-long, in-person preschool programs.”

These studies provide “new evidence that innovations in educational media and in leveraging caregivers’ support of learning can improve children’s holistic development,” said Hirokazu Yoshikawa, former co-director of Global TIES for Children.

The effectiveness of using media to teach peace or well-being is corroboratedby studies of peace education projects conducted in Sierra Leone during and after the civil war. In their analysis, Yi and Wyness found that one of the most successful peace education initiatives was a series of TV and radio shows produced by Search for Common Ground. Structured programs led by the state or the UN, and those taking place in educational institutions, often had limited success due to a lack of scale, insufficient teacher motivation, and a lack of relevance of the content to the specific context. Non-formal education initiatives, however, seemed more successful at fostering reconciliation.

The Limitations of Humanitarian Education

There are several underlying issues with humanitarian approaches to peace. One of the most apparent assumptions is that most conflicts stem not from imbalances of power or resources but from a lack of mutual understanding. As the authors of a 2025 article published in the International Journal of Lifelong Education explain, a focus solely on promoting dialogue between conflicting parties is flawed. “This approach has the underlying assumptions that conflict primarily emerges from misunderstanding or lack of recognition, and reconciliation is both possible and desirable if dialogue is fostered.” The article points out that “peace education can no longer rest on the post-1945 model of (only) cultivating diplomacy, pacifism, compromise, and reconciliation under the presumption that peace is humanity’s default state. Rather, a reconceptualization of peace education is required that: resists both naïve appeasement and creeping militarization; and instead anchors itself in justice, international law, and democratic resilience.”

Current thinking points out that humanitarian education and peace education focus on promoting negative rather than positive peace. As a 2026 study published in the Educational Research Review explains, scholar Johan Galtung’s theory of positive peace “emphasizes the importance of addressing not only direct violence, but also structural and cultural violence, to achieve sustainable peace.” Arguably, by focusing solely on teaching empathy, resilience, and dialogue, humanitarian education initiatives fail to achieve positive peace.

Often, this reluctance to draw attention to the political, social, or economic inequalities that people caught up in or actively participating in conflict face stems from a desire (or imperative) to remain neutral and impartial. The Red Cross approach to humanitarian education mainly focuses on teaching about IHL to maintain neutrality. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) even states that “[The exploring humanitarian law program] is not explicitly concerned with peace, tolerance, mutual understanding, prevention of violence or conflict resolution. It emphasizes the positive changes in attitude stemming from ideas related to respect for life and human dignity, civic responsibility, and solidarity.”

The Red Cross approach helps ensure that its materials, and therefore its values, are taught in places where peace education may be censored, and focuses on creating materials that local teachers and practitioners can share in schools or communities.

According to international humanitarian law practitioner Sobhi Tawil, teaching IHL is less controversial than teaching human rights, as some divided societies consider lessons on human rights to be aligned with one side of the conflict. National Red Cross organizations function as humanitarian auxiliariesto their respective governments and are often accountable to prevailing public opinion. As an example, there has been previous backlash toward British Red Cross educational materials, which positively supported anti-racism education.


Humanitarian education initiatives that avoid discussing the causes or symptoms of conflict only alienate learners who are suffering real injustices. The Red Cross has lost significant legitimacy over the past few years, particularly with Ukrainians who accuse the wider Red Cross of complicity due to the actions of the Russian and Belarusian Red Cross organizations. In many ways, attempts to remain neutral and impartial in education are doomed to failure. According to Critical Pedagogy, a theory pioneered by Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, “schools typically serve the interests of those who have power in a society by, usually unintentionally, perpetuating unquestioned norms for relationships, expectations, and behaviors.” As an International Institution with close ties to Western powers, a humanitarian organization risks reinforcing the problems that cause conflict.

Another issue is that foreign educators are often sent to poor countries to carry out humanitarian work and are disconnected from the local population, having a limited understanding of the complex social context. Sometimes they don’t speak local languages at all, or at a very basic level, according to Junru Bia’s article for the Network for Strategic Analysis. The temporary nature of their contract also means they are not around long enough to do the painstaking work required. As Michael N. Barnett explains in “The Humanitarian Club” in the book Global Governance in a World of Change, the humanitarian sector operates as an elite club furthering the interests of a specific group. They are elite not just because they come from the West and are funded by Western interests, but also because, as individuals, they come from middle- and upper-class backgrounds. Organizations like the UN and the IFRC favor individuals who are fluent in at least two European languages, not necessarily to speak to local people, but because these languages are the established languages of international politics. These humanitarian jobs are often completely out of reach for working-class people in any nation, Junru Bian points out.

Despite some efforts to universalize humanitarian education by building inter-agency networks and clusters, for the most part, each international humanitarian organization has its own individual education initiative, which is often rolled out differently in each location. Sometimes these initiatives include cooperation with local organizations, while in other instances they involve the state education departments. The sheer volume of different initiatives may be due to localization processes, and to ensure that learning meets the needs and contexts of learners. But it can also result from competition among organizations, the desire to align with their internal mission or values, and funders who demand something new, different, or specific to their goals.

Failing to meet funders’ demands can lead to a Catch-22 financial situation for humanitarian organizations. Education initiatives are already chronically underfunded. “New analysis from UNICEF shows that international aid to education is projected to fall by $3.2 billion by 2026—a 24 percent drop,” states the UNICEF website. International Rescue Committee’s senior director of education, Emma Gremley, laments that “Despite the vast and growing education needs of children and youth in crisis contexts, education remains a severely underfunded aspect of humanitarian responses globally, receiving less than three percent of humanitarian aid annually.” On the other hand, when it is funded, funders can often bring their own biases to the program through funding requirements. The World Bank self-reports that it is a key funder of humanitarian education programs. “Our education portfolio in Fragility, Conflict, and Violence settings has grown rapidly in recent years, reflecting the increasing importance of the FCV agenda in education. In fiscal year 2024 (FY24), our investment in FCV settings stands at $7 billion, accounting for about 27 percent of the World Bank’s education portfolio and representing 42 projects in 28 countries.” Critics argue that organizations such as the World Bank are not politically neutral and that funding priorities can shape the design and implementation of humanitarian education programs.

Another problem is the lack of consistency in approach and in the sharing of data to determine which actions or initiatives are effective and which are not. Even when organizations review their programs, they are not always forthcoming with the results, perhaps for fear that any negative findings would be used to revoke funding. Finally, a common issue across these initiatives is their focus solely on teaching children. Adults are key actors in conflict, but are often completely excluded from these peace education initiatives. In general, very little attention is paid to educating adults beyond career-related skills. According to a 2023 survey by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, one in four adults faces barriers to learning. Around half of adults don’t participate in learning or show interest in it. Common barriers are a lack of time and opportunities, and the restrictive cost of training. Humanitarian peace education, which doesn’t reach the people who need it the most, cannot possibly achieve peace.
The Future of Humanitarian Education

Humanitarian education has expanded far beyond simply restoring access to schooling. It now encompasses peace education, psychosocial support, social-emotional learning, and humanitarian principles, all aimed at reducing suffering and helping communities recover from crisis. While many programs show promising results, especially at the individual and community level, evidence of their long-term impact on building peaceful societies remains limited.

The field also faces significant challenges, including chronic underfunding, fragmented approaches across organizations, political constraints, and a lack of rigorous long-term evaluation. As a result, researchers still know far less than they should about which educational approaches produce lasting change and how successful models can be adapted to different cultural and political contexts.

Even so, humanitarian education remains one of the few humanitarian tools that addresses both immediate crises and their long-term consequences. Beyond restoring access to classrooms, it seeks to equip people with the knowledge, skills, and resilience needed to navigate conflict, rebuild communities, and reduce future harm. As conflicts become more frequent and complex, education is increasingly recognized not simply as a humanitarian service but as an essential part of humanitarian infrastructure—and one of the most important long-term investments societies can make in peace, resilience, and human well-being.

Credit Line: This article was produced for the Observatory by the Independent Media Institute.

About Chloe Bruce
Chloe Bruce is a nonprofit communications specialist and project manager who has worked and volunteered with humanitarian organizations in the UK, Australia, Colombia, China, and Canada. She studied English and history at the University of Edinburgh before earning a master's degree in leadership and international development from King's College London. She also holds an advanced diploma in humanitarian education from the University of Teacher Education Zug. She is a contributor to the Observatory.
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