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Monitoring and reporting attacks on education in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Somalia
Author(s) -
Bennouna Cyril,
van Boetzelaer Elburg,
Rojas Lina,
Richard Kinyera,
Karume Gang,
Nshombo Marius,
Roberts Leslie,
Boothby Neil
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
disasters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.744
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1467-7717
pISSN - 0361-3666
DOI - 10.1111/disa.12245
Subject(s) - globe , democracy , the republic , political science , poison control , economic growth , socioeconomics , medicine , environmental health , law , sociology , politics , philosophy , theology , economics , ophthalmology
The United Nations' Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism is charged with documenting six grave violations against children in a time of conflict, including attacks on schools. Many of these incidents, however, remain unreported across the globe. This study explores whether or not a local knowledge base of education and child protection actors in North and South Kivu Provinces, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and in Mogadishu, Somalia, could contribute to a more complete record of attacks on education in those areas. Hundreds of semi‐structured interviews were conducted with key informants across the three settings, and in total 432 attacks on education were documented. Purposive samples of these reports were verified and a large majority was confirmed. Local non‐governmental organisations and education institutions were most knowledgeable about these incidents, but most never reported them to a monitoring authority. The study concludes that attack surveillance and response were largely insufficient, and recommends investing in mechanisms that utilise local knowledge to address these shortcomings.