The Humanitarian Education Accelerator (HEA) is an Education Cannot Wait-funded programme led by UNHCR.

The programme supports promising humanitarian education innovations to transition from successful pilots to programmes that can operate at scale - through capacity building, mentorship, peer learning and rigorous research. Since 2016, the HEA has supported nine grantees, operating in multiple contexts.

The HEA seeks to address gaps in evidence and scaling capacity by taking common elements from an accelerator - such as mentorship, internal capacity building and establishing a cohort that works together - and merging these with an evaluation-based programme. Through this unique approach, the HEA seeks to:

• - Build the evidence base on how to effectively scale education innovations in humanitarian settings, through investing in rigorous research;
• - Strengthen internal monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) processes and provide targeted support for selected organisations to navigate scale ;
• - Assist organisations to build strong, supportive partnerships with governments, humanitarian and development actors, donors and other practitioners for sustainable scale;
• - Develop a community of practice, capturing knowledge and sharing lessons learned on scaling humanitarian education innovations, including the development of global public goods for the wider education sector.