(Note: A complete summary of today's Security Council meeting will be available at a later time.)
Digital education, when designed with robust safeguards, can ensure children can access learning even when conflict shuts down schools, the Security Council heard today at its first March meeting under the United States presidency of that body.
Chaired by United States' First Lady Melania Trump - the first time a Council meeting has been chaired by a presidential spouse - the meeting comes at a time when 473 million children - one in every five children - is living in or fleeing a conflict zone.
Council resolution 2601 (2021) is a crucial element in the normative framework aimed at ensuring children's access to education during conflict. Among other provisions, it calls on Member States to "promote the adoption of remote learning solutions, including digital learning, literacy, and skills", as well as to provide assistance for the continuation of education for refugee and displaced children.
Briefing the Council was Rosemary DiCarlo, Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, who noted that the last two days prove that children are among the most affected by conflict. Schools in Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman have closed and moved to remote learning. Noting reports from Iran about the death of possibly dozens of children allegedly as the result of a strike that hit an elementary school in the town of Minab, she added: "United States authorities have announced that they are looking into these reports."
Schools as Safe Spaces
Around the world, she said, 234 million children in conflict situations currently need educational support, with 85 million completely out of school. In violent conflicts, schools can be one of the only safe spaces that protect children and provide essential services. And yet, in 2024 alone, the UN verified a total of 2,374 attacks on schools and hospitals - many more are unverified.
"Digital learning can offer access to education when schools are closed or inaccessible, or when students are fleeing violence," she said, highlighting the Instant Network Schools programme, which allows refugees and teachers to access digital educational content and the Internet in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan.
Online Threats against Children in Conflict: Exploitation, Trafficking, Recruitment by Armed Groups
At the same time, children in conflict face heightened online threats: exploitation, trafficking, radicalization, digital recruitment into armed groups, and cyberbullying. It is crucial to strengthen legal and policy frameworks and address funding for education in emergencies. "The most effective way to protect children from conflict is to prevent and end wars," she added, as she paid tribute to the First Lady of the United States for "her work to give visibility to the issue of children in conflict".
"The [United States] stands with all of the children throughout the world," declared Melania Trump, First Lady of that country and Council President for March, speaking in her national capacity. "The value placed on education by a nation's leaders shapes the core of their country's belief system," she added.
In a digitally connected age, technology can help meet basic human needs, she underscored. Roughly 6 billion people - about 70 per cent of the global population - now have mobile devices and Internet access. Artificial intelligence is expanding access to knowledge once confined to universities, enabling individuals everywhere to learn about other cultures and participate in the global economy of ideas. "Today, almost anyone anywhere can access a vast universe of data in the palm of their hand," she said, appealing: "Let's connect everyone to knowledge through AI, including those in the most remote geographic regions of our world."
Path from Ceasefire to Resilience 'Runs through the Classroom'
Speakers from countries with experience of conflict shared valuable lessons from their history. "Across West Africa, post-conflict recovery has shown us that the path from ceasefire to resilience runs through the classroom," said Liberia's delegate, describing his country's own 14-year civil war. "We learned a painful truth - when education collapses during conflict, the conflict itself does not end, it simply mutates." Children were recruited before they could read, teachers were dispersed and an entire generation was told to wait for peace before being allowed to learn.
However, community radio delivered lessons across the country - even when in-person schooling was not safe - demonstrating the value of technology. Today, Africa is not waiting to be transformed by digital technology; it is shaping its own path by developing low-bandwidth platforms, solar-powered systems and community-driven learning models. "If we fail children in conflict today, we will debate their crises tomorrow," he warned.
The representative of the Democratic Republic of the Congo said that guaranteeing access to education and digital technology for children in armed conflict is "an essential reality" for his country. It has witnessed decades of repeated violence and, currently in South Kivu province, M23 and the Rwandan Defence Force are undermining the Government's provision of free schooling by imposing fees while thousands of schools no longer function and hundreds are occupied by armed groups. Nevertheless, the Government adopted a strategy in 2025 to build a resilient, inclusive education system "capable of ensuring the continuity of learning before, during and after crises", he reported.
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