On the photo: Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel, Vice party leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), Edelgard Buhlman, Vice President of the Bundestag, and Alice Albright, GPE CEO. Credit: GPE/Sabine Terlecki

Last week, GPE CEO Alice Albright visited two donor countries, Germany and Italy.

In Germany, she met with members of parliament, representatives of the Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development and civil society partners such as Plan Germany, Save the Children, ONE and the Global Campaign for Education Germany. They discussed the upcoming GPE replenishment and explored ways to strengthen collaboration between Germany and GPE. Germany has been a donor partner to GPE since 2005 and will host the G20 meeting on July 7-8 in Hamburg.

In Italy, she met with Ambassador Pietro Sebastian, Director General of Italian Development Cooperation to discuss Italy’s growing engagement in the partnership. Italy holds the G7 presidency for 2017 and will host the G7 Summit at the end of May in Taormina, Sicily. We are delighted to be collaborating with Italy on the G7 Accountability Report, which is featuring education as its theme for the first time. Also in Rome, Alice Albright had the opportunity to meet civil society partners such as Save the Children Italia and the Global Campaign for Education Italy.

As GPE prepares for its replenishment campaign this year, visiting donor partners that have been instrumental in making the partnership what it is today is crucial. It helps mobilize and galvanize energy from both government and civil society actors in support of the education goals that the global community adopted in 2015.

We are grateful for the support of Germany and Italy and all our donor partners.