By External Source
Mar 6 2025 (IPS-Partners)
Dr. Ramiz Alakbarov was appointed as the UN Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator in Ethiopia by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres in August 2023.
Prior to his current assignment, Dr. Alakbarov served as Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan with the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, where he was also the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator.
Dr. Alakbarov has also served in several positions within the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), including as Deputy Executive Director for Management and UN Reforms (ad-interim) and Director of the Policy and Strategy Division in New York, Country Representative in Haiti, Deputy Regional Director of the Regional Office for Arab States and Head of the Office in South Sudan. Prior to these positions, he served in various roles at UNFPA supporting country programmes in Arab States, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, including as Programme Officer covering Sudan, Somalia and Iraq, and as Humanitarian Response Officer for Operations in Afghanistan, Palestine and the Great Lakes Region.
From 1992 to 1995, he was an Assistant Professor at Azerbaijan Medical University and a practicing physician. Dr. Alakbarov carries MD and PhD degrees in internal medicine from Azerbaijan Medical University and an MA in International Relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Boston, Massachusetts.
ECW: In your capacity as UN Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator in Ethiopia, you oversee inter-agency multisectoral humanitarian and development aid in support of the Government’s efforts. Why is prioritizing education critical, particularly in areas affected by emergencies and protracted crises?
Dr. Ramiz Alakbarov: First, allow me to express appreciation to Education Cannot Wait (ECW) for making education central to everything we do in humanitarian and development settings. I have worked for the UN for over 30 years and, in every country I’ve worked, I have seen the aid community often prioritizing immediate lifesaving needs over more “development needs” – education being one of the areas of work that was paid less attention to. Since its creation in 2016, ECW has become a critical changemaker.
It is important to remember that education is a basic human right and, as such, every child, regardless of their circumstances, deserves access to quality education. It’s not just an ideal. It’s a fundamental entitlement and ensuring every child can access it is a shared responsibility.
Education is also more than just a right: it is a lifeline, especially for children affected by a crisis. In conflict and displacement settings, education provides stability, protection and a sense of normalcy amid chaos and trauma.
Education is also a critical investment in the future which has a promise of development, opportunities and prosperity. It empowers children to shape their own lives and strengthens entire communities. ECW, with its targeted focus on the most vulnerable learners, has contributed to moving the needle for children in emergency contexts, including girls and children with disabilities.
For girls, its impact is particularly profound: countless studies have shown how investing in girls’ education leads to declining rates of child marriages and reduces child mortality. It also improves the nutrition of children and family well-being.
In Ethiopia, phase one of the ECW Multi-Year Resilience Programme (MYRP)e, implemented by UNICEF and Save the Children in 2019-2024, provides a concrete example of the importance of establishing gender-sensitive protection mechanisms in schools and communities. Through establishing referral pathways in and around target schools, 2,353 children (673 girls) who had experienced violence were reached by health, social work or justice services. In addition to this, the 85 target schools established peer-to-peer learning networks among girls, female teachers and mothers to promote gender equality and awareness on the right for girls to continue their education in safe learning environments.
By prioritizing education, we are not only investing in the individual futures of these children, but also in the stability and prosperity of their communities. It’s an ethical conviction but also a very practical truth. We are all interconnected and interdependent. The well-being of one community is intrinsically linked to the well-being of others.
Investing in education creates a ripple effect that contributes to broader stability, well-being and peace. Education is the most powerful tool which gives a signal of return to normalcy, it is a tool that rebuilds and restores hope and creates lasting change. It is equally important that education covers all aspects, starting from early childhood development, and covers the needs of all children, including children with special needs.
The Government of Ethiopia established several model schools for children with different special needs in Addis Ababa, a very successful practice which needs to be further expanded to ensure that all children with such needs have access to education. The UN family in Ethiopia supports various programmes targeting children with special needs and recently joined forces with the Ministry of Women and Social Affairs to organize the 1st Africa Continental sign language conference in Addis Ababa at the end of 2024. Sign language courses and programmes have also been introduced at the Addis Ababa University. These prepare specialists and teachers, another step forward towards making education more accessible for children with special needs.
ECW: Ethiopia faces a staggering challenge, with an estimated 9 million children out of school due to compounded effects of various crises, including conflicts, climate change-induced severe droughts and floods, and displacement. How can multilateral aid donors, including Education Cannot Wait (ECW), further help address this urgent crisis? Why should more public and private sector donors get involved?
Dr. Ramiz Alakbarov: The work of Education Cannot Wait plays a pivotal role in providing education to children living in these emergencies – whether they are internally displaced due to natural disasters, returnees in the aftermath of conflict, refugees or children from host communities. All these children need access to safe, inclusive and quality educational opportunities and ECW’s investments provide the comprehensive support crucial to meeting the urgent needs on the ground.
While donors have been generous and committed to Ethiopia’s development, the reality is that the needs are much larger than the available support. In this context, emergency education continues to be the most underfunded sector, and further advocacy efforts are needed to fill the growing funding gaps. ECW is providing multi-year predictable funding free from excessive conditionality, which ensures continuity of support and is bridging the gap between humanitarian and development programming. This creates strength in the communities and is key for post-conflict transitioning and resilience in communities affected by both conflict and climate emergencies.
Lack of financial support to education only deepens humanitarian needs, creates humanitarian dependencies, and increases the future humanitarian caseload. As availability of resources is on the decline, greater emphasis on resilience-building measures, such as education, needs to be made. The aid community and donors should not underestimate the importance of investments into education – it is a key element of building resilience for the communities affected by crisis.
Since 2019, through ECW-funded interventions, UNICEF has supported access to safe and protective quality education for 194,734 children (99,017 girls) in conflict and drought-affected regions across Ethiopia – implementing responses to sudden-onset and protracted crises in 9 out the 13 Ethiopian regions. In total, through support from ECW, UNICEF and partners have trained 1,446 teachers on child-centered pedagogy, gender-based violence, disability inclusion and child protection, and responded to damaged schools and overcrowded classrooms by rehabilitating 209 classrooms and temporary learning spaces.
While continued support is essential, we must also expand our resource mobilization efforts by reaching new donors and partners. Private donors are important as they bring additional resources, innovation and fresh perspectives to the table. These contributions are critical to scaling up programmes and reaching even more children in need. The LEGO Foundation’s investments in early childhood education (ECE) in emergencies, both in Ethiopia and globally, provide a great example of how private sector donors can drive positive change for children and push for increased investment in underfunded subsectors, such as ECE. More needs to be done through bridging in elements of innovation, digital connectivity and creative expansion of access to learning for all children.
I also want to acknowledge the incredible work of humanitarian staff across Ethiopia, who are operating sometimes in extremely challenging conditions. Their dedication to the cause of education makes a profound difference in the lives of children.
Investing in education is an investment in resilience, peace, stability and long-term economic development. We need everyone’s support to give these children the education they deserve.
ECW: Having served as a senior UN official in countries with very diverse settings and in complex crisis situations – from Ethiopia to the Middle East and from South Sudan to Haiti and Afghanistan – what are your key takeaways on the importance of strengthening complementarity between humanitarian, development and peace interventions? How does ECW’s innovative approach in the education sector contribute to advancing the ‘triple nexus’?
Dr. Ramiz Alakbarov: Working for the UN in various setting for the last 31 years, I have learned that a siloed humanitarian approach is no longer a viable value proposition to respond to a natural or manmade crisis. Humanitarian, development and political actors must work together to effectively address the root causes of the challenges we face, to eliminate them and to create a quick path to recovery. Each player provides a distinct yet complementary role, and their efforts must be synchronized for maximum impact.
Education is a powerful example of the triple nexus in action. It simultaneously addresses urgent humanitarian needs – offering children safety, protection and stability – while also fostering long-term development by building human capital and skills. At the same time, it serves as a powerful tool to build peace, promote social cohesion and prevent violence.
In the new aid environment we are facing in 2025, we must aim to provide adequate support to all basic human need areas, regardless of operational context, and education here takes a central role. It must not be de-prioritized or made optional/secondary to immediate life-saving interventions. In other words, simply providing immediate relief and asking communities to wait for a durable solution is not an acceptable value proposition.
While working as a first responder to the devastating 12 January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, which reportedly took lives of more than 220,000 people in one day, I have witnessed how communities affected by the earthquake put emphasis on bringing schools back to operations as one of the first priorities. While the rubble of Port-au-Prince was under the initial phase of cleaning just weeks after the tragic earthquake, it was heartwarming to see children lining up on the streets early in the morning wearing uniforms and going to schools, which often were re-opened in makeshift tents.
One of my tasks in Haiti was to focus on restoring midwifery education. Haiti was facing an acute shortage of professional midwives and the only midwifery school in the country was destroyed by the earthquake. The school building had collapsed and taken the lives of most of the teaching personnel and the students in attendance. The UN acted quickly and classes restarted quickly – first in tents and, later, the school was fully restored through the efforts of the UN system (UNFPA, MINUSTAH and UNICEF). I was proud to be at the midwifery school graduation ceremony in September of 2014, where the survivors of the earthquake received their diplomas, and new students started their classes.
Education is also constantly prioritized by the communities affected by the crisis. On 3 July 2022, I led a memorable visit of humanitarian team members to review the earthquake relief operation in the Wori Kala Village of the Barmal District of Paktika Province in Afghanistan. In the meeting with community leaders, where only one person spoke English, I was handed over a handwritten list of the community needs. There was no surprise, education was listed as a top priority. In my conversation with community leaders, I asked them why education was a priority while they still struggle with access to basic needs such as water and food?
The answer was immediate and clear: “…Almost no one in the village has education and, because of this, we live in poverty. If we have education, we will have hope for the future and that is why we need it most.”
ECW’s innovative, multi-stakeholder approach ensures that funding and programming go beyond short-term emergency relief, integrating long-term sustainability and resilience-building.
The ECW MYRP, operating in Ethiopia since 2019 and now in its second phase, highlights how ECW contributes to strengthening resilience in target communities, while also strengthening the EiE structure on national and subnational levels.
In this regard, the strengthening of the Education Cluster in Ethiopia, co-led by UNICEF and Save the Children, is exemplified with the increase in active cluster partners from 6 in 2021 to 102 in 2024, resulting in timely and quality data management. This data supports ECW and other actors to produce high-quality, evidence-based advocacy products for their national and global advocacy. In a context where EiE needs tripled since 2019, ECW have provided a platform for the Cluster to advocate with donors such as Finland, LEGO Foundation, Norway, the EU, Canada and the UK, resulting in increased support for lifesaving EiE interventions.
However, as mentioned earlier, today’s reality remains that humanitarian needs across the globe are large and, despite the generosity of donors, availability of resources is in decline.
We must leverage innovative financing, invest in locally-led solutions and strengthen cross-sectoral collaboration to drive sustainable, long-term change. We also must make sure that all our support leads to sustainability, durable solutions and lasting change.
ECW: We know that ‘readers are leaders’ and that reading skills are key to every child’s education, no matter who or where they are. What are three books that have most influenced you personally and/or professionally, and why would you recommend them to others?
Dr. Ramiz Alakbarov: Reading serves as a gateway to knowledge, fostering critical thinking and understanding of complex ideas and diverse perspectives. Ensuring every child has access to books and the opportunity to read is vital. Even in the age of AI, books will remain indispensable, retaining their timeless value.
On my own personal and leadership journey, a great variety of books shaped my identity, guided my choices, and inspired me to live a purposeful and meaningful life. Choosing just three is not easy but, for the purpose of this interview, I selected the following three:
A Path out of Poverty by Paul Farmer. This book was written by the late Professor Paul Farmer with whom I had the honor and privilege to work in Haiti on public health matters and establishing Haiti’s largest private-public partnership University Hospital in Mirabalais. Dr. Farmer was a strong advocate for building capacities of national institutions and authored “accompaniment approach” to the nationally owned initiatives. His book makes a strong evidence-based case that development best works through nationally owned processes. It is an excellent read for aid practitioners and those interested in the sector.
The Commanding Heights by Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw was originally published in 1998 and, in 2002, a 6-hour PBS documentary was produced based on that book. I would highly recommend this book or documentary to anyone who works in international development and wants to reexamine how the evolution of economic theories and world politics intertwined to create the current global peace, humanitarian and development landscape.
Defiant Dreams: The Journey of an Afghan Girl Who Risked Everything for Education, written by Sola Mahfouz and Malaina Kapoor in 2023 is my third book. As someone who lived and worked in Afghanistan through the most tumultuous times of its recent history (2020–2023), I find this book to be a must read. It is a fascinating, dramatic and inspiring book which gives hope that we all will see a better future for Afghanistan. Women and girls of Afghanistan will not be silenced; they stand up for their rights, they see education as a path to the future and they will win.
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:’https’;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+’://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js’;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, ‘script’, ‘twitter-wjs’);
