Oslo, July 7, 2015 -- The Global Partnership for Education strongly supports the establishment of a high-level Commission on Financing for Global Education announced today by the Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg and the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. The announcement was made during the Education for Development Summit in Oslo hosted by the Norwegian Government and attended by global leaders and policy makers.
The Financing Commission is expected to invigorate global education financing and identify more effective and better coordinated ways to deploy resources ensuring that children are in school and learn. The commission will make recommendations to the UN Secretary-General in September 2016.
According to UNESCO estimates there is a global financing gap between available domestic resources and total needs of US$39 billion annually to ensure that all children in the world get a quality education.
Global leaders agreed at the summit that this gap can only be closed by a combination of increased domestic funding raised by developing countries, more efficient use of existing resources, new and innovative partnerships, cooperation with civil society, as well as results-oriented, well-coordinated and catalytic development aid.
“Domestic spending is the most important source of financing for education. But more donor aid is needed to close this enormous gap. Aid can play an important role and often has a catalytic impact for more and more efficient education financing,” said Julia Gillard, Board Chair of the Global Partnership for Education.
Youth activist Malala Yousafzai who also attended the summit and met separately with Julia Gillard and Alice Albright, Chief Executive Officer of the Global Partnership, called on global leaders to endorse and fully fund an ambitious new sustainable education goal for education, including universal access to primary and secondary school for all children. The new global goals will be announced by the United Nations in September in New York.
“The Global Partnership is a central platform through which the ambitious post-2015 education agenda can be achieved. As co-convener and implementing partner of the post-2015 education agenda, the Global Partnership will support the United Nations and its member states, including national, regional, and global-level processes to track progress against the education targets”, said Julia Gillard.
The summit also discussed the need to review and improve global aid for education in emergencies and protracted crisis situations. Currently, 37 million children and youth are out of school due to conflicts, disasters, displacements and epidemics. Many of them will miss months and even years of school undermining their own future and the future of their countries.
A champions’ group on education in emergencies and protracted crisis to advance global action is already working and has agreed on a set of principles that reaffirm existing commitments. The group is expected to address the financing gap for education in emergencies and crisis and review funding modalities and the need to a new fund to support education in emergencies. It is expected to make its recommendations by the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016.
“The Global Partnership for Education is committed to continuing to work together with key partners to develop the operational structure needed to support and fund education in emergencies and protracted crisis,” said Alice Albright, Chief Executive Officer of the Global Partnership for Education.
The Global Partnership for Education also looks forward to contributing to the new initiative on teachers proposed by the Norwegian government today.
The high-level summit was attended by Norwegian Prime Minister Solberg, the president of Rwanda, the prime ministers of Haiti, Niger and Pakistan, the foreign ministers of Niger and Palestine, and the education ministers of around 10 countries. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, UN Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown, Graça Machel from the UN MDG Advocacy Group, Malala Yousafzai, leaders of UN agencies and representatives of non-governmental organizations and the private sector were also present.
The Global Partnership for Education is grateful to the leadership of the Norwegian Government and the unrelenting advocacy of Gordon Brown for children’s education.
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