Beyond Emergency Response: Gender, Displacement, and School Retention in Protracted Crises in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo
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Abstract
The paper analyses school retention trends in two protracted crisis situations, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), between 2015 and 2023, focusing on the intersection of gender and displacement to determine educational outcomes. Based on systematic documentary analysis of data provided by UNESCO, UNHCR, Education Cannot Wait, and national education sector reports, this paper identifies critical differences between access-oriented interventions and retention-specific issues in the context of prolonged political instability and armed conflict. In Burundi, there is a gender reversal in primary completion with girls performing better, whereas in the DRC, gender differences are still high with secondary completion at 51.4% among girls and 63.5% among boys. In both settings, displacement exacerbates educational vulnerability, as more than 300,000 Burundian refugees and 8.2 million displaced individuals in DRC experience compounding barriers to long-term schooling. The results dispute linear emergency-transition-development models, showing that protracted crises demand different analytical and programmatic strategies. This study not only provides theoretical understanding of the gender-displacement nexus in education, but also presents evidence-based suggestions to humanitarian and development actors operating at the nexus between crisis and education.
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