Drought affected children have access to quality education in a safe and protective learning environment that promotes their safety and well-being There are 3 million crisis affected children (1,389,125) who will need education assistance during 2022 , and out of the approximately 6 million school aged children in Somalia, only an estimated 1.8 million (45 per cent girls) children are enrolled in schools. The increase of children in need of education assistance in 2022 is attributed to the increased population, COVID-19 pandemic, economic deterioration, ongoing environmental shocks and conflict. Concurrent shocks such as drought and floods adversely affect children’s learning. An estimated 408,000 (45 per cent girls) school-going children are affected by the ongoing drought conditions in the country, which are expected to continue to March 2022 according Somalia Education Cluster 2021 report.
Children in targeted drought affected locations are at risk of child labour, early marriages, neglect, violence and exploitation. Children’s rights are at risk of being violated and this is exacerbated by limited mechanisms to protect children. While the prevailing drought itself is a barrier to education, absence of child protection mechanisms results in children not accessing education and dropping out of school as protection related risks increase barriers to education. Integrating child protection and education support therefore creates an enabling environment for accessing education in targeted locations.
To retain children in school, there is need to mitigate activities such as provision of safe water, food and teacher incentives to respond to children affected by emerging shocks such as drought. Girls are mostly affected as they face socio-cultural norms which severely restrict their mobility combined with safety concerns and supply-related challenges (such as a lack of trained female teachers or gender-segregated latrines), these barriers limit their access to education. 
Child Protection in schools remains weak, despite the rolling out of the 2019 Education-Child Protection Response Framework which aims to strengthen child protection in schools. Thus, this integrated education and child protection project seeks to ensure holistic and integrated response with education and child protection interventions in North Gaalkayo to promote access to education and retention of school children and reduce child protection challenges.  The project will target 9,266 (40% female) primary school-aged children in 36 drought-affected schools with Child Protection services reaching 7646 children and caregivers. The project is complemented by life-saving components such as 
	School feeding (7432 beneficiaries), 
	Access to safe water and improved WASH facilities - gender segregated latrines and hygiene promotion (9,266 beneficiaries), 
	Provision of sanitary kits (2029 girls),
	Teacher incentives (108 beneficiaries), 
	Psychosocial support services (372 beneficiaries), 
	Construction/rehabilitation of protective temporary learning spaces (4) and 
	Provision of classroom furniture (30 desks)
	Distribution of school learning and recreational materials (9,266 beneficiaries),

The project is combined with child protection component which includes strengthening existing child protection community-based mechanisms to create an overall enabling safe protective environment for children through 
	Provision of Child Protection Case Management (1000 beneficiaries), 
	Support to Unaccompanied and Separated Children (800 beneficiaries) and 
	Community based child protection and outreach activities (1450 beneficiaries).