Given significant reductions in global humanitarian and development funding, many aid actors are shifting away from direct service delivery toward greater reliance on technical assistance (TA) as a means of sustaining education investments. This shift heightens the urgency of strengthening the evidence base on what forms of TA are effective—particularly in conflict and crisis settings, where evidence remains especially thin. In this context, FCDO has requested support from the ERICC Helpdesk to synthesise evidence on promising practices and lessons learned from TA models that may inform systems strengthening in conflict and protracted crisis settings. Education systems in these settings vary significantly, from informal community-led services to early-stage government-led systems or low-capacity state structures. These systems operate across a continuum, from fully humanitarian to development responses. Opportunities for TA within these systems are shaped by donor engagement, political recognition (or non-recognition) of authorities, and operational constraints.

This study explores three illustrative scenarios of systems in conflict and crisis-affected settings, with different and unique opportunities and barriers for system strengthening engagement. These scenarios are:

1) Countries where donors do not engage de facto authorities and operate mainly through humanitarian channels (e.g., Sudan, Afghanistan, Myanmar);

2) Countries in transition where donor engagement was previously restricted, but where political changes have newly opened opportunities for potential direct systems engagement (e.g., Syria); and

3) Countries with donor engagement despite low state capacity and/or incentive to implement education reforms (e.g., South Sudan, Ethiopia, Lebanon).

Each of these scenarios contains specific structural and governance characteristics and engagement constraints which need to be better understood to identify parameters and opportunities for potential engagement and inform feasible technical assistance strategies. Understanding the challenges and opportunities across this continuum can support the development of effective and strategic investments in technical assistance for systems strengthening.