School impacts of violent relgious extremism

This 3-year project investigates how the spread of violent extremism in the Sahel region affects the acquisition of quality education, and the potentially gendered differences in the effects.

In particular, we will examine the effect of violent extremism on both the supply of and demand for education in Burkina Faso.

The spread of violent extremist groups from Mali to Burkina Faso has been nearly independent of domestic factors, and resulted in e.g. school closures that have occurred non-uniformly across the region over time.

We will contribute to the literature on education impacts of conflict through our unique access to both school census data, which allow us to map out effects of conflict on the supply of education in detail, and household panel data, which allow us to track the total effects on children’s educational outcome for a representative sample of children.

In addition to existing conflict-event data we will collect novel data on the presence of violent extremists, enabling us to disentangle effects of the presence of Islamists from effects of the violence itself.

The research team consists of development economists with experience of research in education and conflict, and with extensive knowledge about Burkina Faso.

The team has solid experience of working with quantitative data and the expertise to apply advanced statistical methods necessary to carry out the project.