Guterres calls States to finance education, for ‘peaceful, prosperous, stable societies’
Anjali Sharma
GG News Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, 19th Sept. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Saturday told journalists at a joint press stakeout on the Transforming Education Summit and the International Finance Facility for Education that the education systems around the world need “more, not less money.”
Mr. Guterres, was speaking alongside his Special Envoy for Global Education, Gordon Brown, drew attention to the critical issue of innovative financing for education.
He reminded that the “world is experiencing multiple crises”, and governments, businesses and families everywhere are feeling the financial strain.
SG noted that two-thirds of countries have cut their education budgets as COVID-19 pandemic began.
He stressed that “But education is the building block for peaceful, prosperous, stable societies.”
“Reducing investment virtually guarantees more serious crises further down the line”.
He said that “We need to get more, not less, money into education systems”.
Guterres argued that while wealthy countries can increase funding from domestic sources, many developing nations are being hit by the cost-of-living crisis.
“They urgently need support for education,” Mr. Guterres stated
He highlighted the role of the International Finance Facility for Education to get financing to lower-middle-income countries home to 700 million children who are out of school and to the majority of the world’s displaced and refugee children.
Guterres said that the Facility is not a new fund, but a mechanism to increase the resources available to multilateral banks to provide low-cost education finance.
“In time, we expect it to grow into a $10 billion facility to educate tomorrow’s generation of young people,” he said.
“It will complement and work alongside existing tools, like the Global Partnership for Education, that provide grants and other assistance”.
He praised his Special Envoy Mr. Gordan Brown and all the countries and institutions involved in getting the facility off the ground.
“I urge all international donors and philanthropic organizations to back it,” he said.
Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed opened Day 2 of the Transforming Education Summit, “Solutions day,” by recapping the need for education transformation; equity and inclusion; a rethink of the curricula and innovation in teaching.
Mohammad stressed “But loud and clear, we need more and better financing,”.
“We can’t do this with fresh air, it has to be fueled”.
She described education as “a huge ecosystem” that supports many other lofty goals and called for “a sense of urgency” in scaling up projects.
“No more pilot projects, we know exactly what to do” she said. “It’s all about taking steps forward”.
Three-day Transforming Education Summit kicked off on Friday at UN Headquarters in New York.
It began with a day of youth-led mobilization.
Guterres introduced his vision statement, along with world leaders, in the General Assembly Hall, on the closing day of the summit.
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