Financing education, imperative for ‘peaceful, prosperous, stable societies’ – UN chief — Global Issues

Secretary General António Guterresspoke with the Special Envoy for Global Education, Gordon Brown, draw attention to the important issue Creative funding for education.

He reminded that “the world is going through many crises,” and that governments, businesses and families everywhere are feeling financial strain.

Furthermore, since COVID-19 When the pandemic began, two-thirds of the country cut its education budget.

“But Education is the foundation for building a peaceful, prosperous and stable society,” he stressed.

“Reducing investment virtually guarantees that more severe crises continue to occur.”

Education support in ‘urgent’ need

“We need to get more, not less, money into education systems,” said the top UN official.

He said that while rich countries can boost their funding from domestic sources, many developing countries are being affected by the cost of living crisis.

Guterres attests: “They desperately need support for education.

Resource mechanism

He then highlighted the role of the International Fund for Education in providing finance for low-middle-income countries – where 700 million children are out of school – and for the majority. refugee and migrant children around the world.

The head of the United Nations told the media that the Fund is not a new fund, but a mechanism to increase the resources available to multilateral banks to provide low-cost education financing. .

“Over time, we expect it to grow into a $10 billion facility to educate the young generation of tomorrow,” he said.

“It will complement and work with existing tools, like the Global Partnership for Education, to provide grants and other support.”

The Secretary-General congratulates the Special Envoy and all the countries and agencies involved in the groundbreaking of this facility.

“I urge all international donors and charities to support it,” he said.

Take steps forward

Earlier today, Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed opened Day 2 of the Summit, “Solution Day”, by addressing the need to transform education; equity and inclusion; rethink curriculum and innovation in teaching.

But loud and clear, we need more and better funding. “We can’t do this with fresh air, it has to be refueled.”

She describes education as “a huge ecosystem” that supports many other lofty goals and calls for a “sense of urgency” in expanding projects.

“With no more pilot projects, we know exactly what to do,” she said. “It’s all about taking steps forward“.

Build the future

The three-day Education Transformation Summit opened yesterday at United Nations Headquarters in New York.

It began with a day of youth-led advocacy, which included contributions from the Secretary-General, his deputy, and the President of the 77th General Assembly, Csaba Kőrösi.

Tomorrow, the head of the United Nations will present his vision statement, along with world leaders, at the General Assembly, as the Summit concludes.