Leaders from Senegal, Malawi, France, and Norway gathered at the UN today to set out the financing effort needed to seize a historic opportunity and tackle the global education emergency.

ONE Campaign and partners call on governments globally to respond to the crisis of over 130 million girls out of school.

NEW YORK (September 20, 2017) — Today, leaders from Senegal and France announced they will co-host a replenishment for the Global Partnership for Education in February 2018. Alongside leaders from Malawi and Norway, and education activists including Malala Yousafzai, Presidents Sall and Macron set out a new global agenda to deliver the financing needed to overturn the global education crisis and reach the sustainable development goal for education (SDG4).

The President and CEO of The ONE Campaign, Gayle Smith, said:

“Today must be the day that the world turns a corner and tackles the global education emergency. Over 130 million girls are out of school — that’s over 130 million potential engineers, entrepreneurs, and politicians whose leadership the world is missing out on. It’s a resource-waste of epic proportions and a global crisis that perpetuates poverty.

“The latest data, from 2015, showed the number of girls missing out on school actually increased for the first time in over a decade.

“Senegal and France today set the ambition, now the world must exceed it. For donors, it starts with fully funding the Global Partnership for Education and Education Cannot Wait. For other governments, it means committing to work towards delivering 20 percent of national budgets to education. For both, it means radical new partnerships with civil society and the private sector to deliver significantly better results for the funds spent.

“This is not just about getting more girls into school, it’s about the women they grow up to become: educated, empowered, and employed. ONE’s eight million members around the world will be hustling governments every step of the way to make sure it happens — over 130 million girls deserve nothing less than our best.”

ENDS

NOTES TO EDITORS:

1. The high-level side event on Goal 4 on Quality Education “Financing the Future: Education 2030” is co-hosted by Norway, France, Malawi and Senegal in partnership with the Education Commission, Global Partnership for Education, Malala Fund, ONE Campaign, UNICEF, and UNESCO.
2. Since 2000, the number of girls missing out on school globally fell steadily, then stalled in recent years. 2015 marked the first time it has started moving in reverse. The number of out of school girls rose by 600,000, from 130.3 million in 2014 to 130.9 million in 2015 worldwide. [UNESCO GEM, 2017].
3. ONE is calling on world leaders to fully finance the Global Partnership for Education as part of the solution for the global education crisis, so it can help millions of girls in the poorest countries get the education they deserve.

ONE is a policy and advocacy organization of nearly 8 million people taking action to end extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa. Not politically partisan, ONE was co-founded by U2 lead singer Bono to raise public awareness and press political leaders to combat AIDS and other preventable diseases, increase investments in agriculture and nutrition, and demand greater transparency in poverty-fighting programs.

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