Contact: Alexandra Humme, ahumme@globalpartnership.org

Washington DC, March 1, 2017 – The Board of Directors of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) has approved an ambitious new financing and funding framework to support global education. The framework’s purpose is to substantially increase GPE’s support to developing countries, and drive greater and better coordinated public and private financing for global education. The new framework will fund GPE 2020, the partnership’s 5-year strategy and become effective in 2018.

“The new financing and funding framework draws on the strength of a growing partnership and an effective GPE fund to mobilize more and better financing, knowledge and commitment to support children’s learning,” said Julia Gillard, Board Chair, Global Partnership for Education. “We will raise more financing and better target that money to meet country needs and achieve greater impact.”

The financing and funding framework responds to recommendations from the International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity to significantly scale up GPE by increasing its annual funding to US$2 billion by 2020.

“The new framework will ensure that the building blocks of effective education systems are in place,” said Alice Albright, Chief Executive Officer, Global Partnership for Education. “In addition to GPE’s strength in pooling grant financing for low-income and fragile countries we will now also be able to leverage additional financing for countries furthest off-track for reaching the global goal for education.”

Key features of the new financing and funding framework include:

• Building an education sector investment case– GPE will expand its role as a facilitator of more and better structured financing in support of education outcomes.  This includes working with countries to build an education sector investment case around nationally owned education plans and bringing investors together to secure new and increased commitments.
• Crowding financing into the education sector – GPE will encourage more co-financing and actively promote the use of grants to leverage financing from other sources such as multilateral development banks, development partners, and private investment.
• A groundbreaking leverage fund that both low- and lower middle-income countries can access.
• Supporting domestic resource mobilization – Monitoring domestic resource commitments through GPE’s operational model will be complemented by advocacy for more and better financing at the global and country level. GPE will strengthen its engagement with Ministries of Finance and place a stronger focus on resourcing education sector plans.
• Enhancing GPE’s operational model - recognizing that strengthening education systems remains at the center of GPE’s work for better results and greater impact. This includes a focus on data collection and the results-based funding model and strengthening the focus on resilience and preparedness, especially for countries affected by conflict or fragility.
• Funding knowledge and innovation – Recognizing the significant gap in financing for public goods in the education sector, GPE will harvest and share experiences from across the partnership and work with new partners to find innovative approaches to overcome policy challenges.
• Promoting transparency, accountability and social mobilization – GPE will support partners to promote the political will needed for good policies, sound practices, inclusive approaches, and more and better financing, at both the global and country level.