This article examines how global institutions contribute to educational change by analyzing the role of Education for All (EFA) in the recent rise of a global field dedicated to education in emergencies (EiE). I build on new sociological insights to argue that global institutions like EFA, commonly critiqued as ineffectual or mere vehicles for powerful interests, can nonetheless provide cultural ingredients and work spaces for the construction of new agendas. I draw on documentary evidence to suggest that the EFA framing of education as a human right provided a powerful cultural frame justifying EiE as an area of need, and that EFA work spaces helped consolidate and legitimate key EiE initiatives and activists, especially early on. The article expands our understanding of how global institutions shape educational change and adds to existing analyses of the rise of EiE as a new global field of intervention.