Understanding loss and damage to education in Burkina Faso, Niger and South Sudan

This call seeks to understand the impacts of climate hazards as outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on education outcomes, specifically learning outcomes, access to education and attainment or years of schooling through rigorous qualitative research in the contexts of Burkina Faso, Niger and South Sudan.

Research proposals that focus on either economic or non-economic loss and damage to education in the specific country context, demonstrating rigorous and methodologically sound qualitative research are invited through this request for proposals. Methodologies could include case studies, grounded theory, phenomenological and other approaches using in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, observations, documentary analysis, outcome harvesting etc. The consortium is interested in innovative research approaches to understanding climate-induced loss and damage to education that can highlight the problem at a policy level and support the demand for increased attention to the impacts of climate change on education. This is, however, not a call for policy change approaches and proposals.

The Combatting Loss and Damage to Education (CLADE) consortium seeks three research partners, one each in Burkina Faso, Niger and South Sudan, to expand the body of evidence on how climate change impacts education, especially in education in emergency contexts. The findings from this research will feed into CLADE’s wider research and advocacy efforts and support sustained demand for finance to respond to climate-induce loss and damage to education.

Proposals need to demonstrate the ability to identify direct links between climate change and the impacts on education attainment, access or learning outcomes. Proposals not demonstrating direct links to education, for example, those showing impact of a climate hazard on nutrition, but not the impact of nutrition on education will not be selected.

Using findings from the country-level studies, partners from the three countries will contribute to the development of a synthesis paper which collates findings from the different settings to identify commonalities or differences in how loss and damage to education manifests across contexts.

The overall expectation of the research partner is to work with the research consortium and in-country partners in a collaborative manner encouraging co-design and learning across all stakeholders.

## Focus Geographies

This research call is restricted to proposals focusing on the following countries experiencing severe climate-vulnerability overlapping with protracted humanitarian crises: 1. Burkina Faso 2. Niger 3. South Sudan

## Timeline and Responsibilities

Project Duration: Funded research activities must run across a maximum timeline of 15 months, kicking off in September 2026 and wrapping up by July 2027.

[You can find the project timeline in the full Terms of Reference here.](https://media.odi.org/documents/Request_for_Proposals_loss_and_damage_to_education_in_Burkina_Faso_Niger_South_Sudan.1.pdf)