19 February 2019: The ‘Education Cannot Wait’ (ECW) fund launched a call for funds to provide education to more than 30 million children affected by ongoing conflicts around the world. Gordon Brown, UN Special Envoy for Global Education, is leading the appeal, citing urgent needs of out-of-school children in Venezuela, the Central African Republic (CAR), Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and South Sudan, and among the Rohingya in Myanmar.

Addressing the press in New York, US, Brown called for expanding ECW to fulfill the right of children, including displaced and stateless children, to a quality education (SDG 4). Brown emphasized the value of education as “a child’s real passport to the future,” and warned that a lost generation of children in conflict zones is currently in the making. He also urged donors to support the International Finance Facility for Education, which aims to serve children in lower-middle-income countries through a blended finance approach. The Facility seeks to make available up to USD 10 billion for children’s education.

ECW is a multi-donor trust fund created by international humanitarian and development actors at the World Humanitarian Summit in in 2016. Hosted by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the fund has spent USD134.5 million in 19 crisis-affected countries to date, reaching an estimated one million children. ECW launched two programmes in February 2019: one providing safe and reliable education for half a million children in Afghanistan, including 325,000 girls; and the other establishing a three-year response to meet the education needs of around 900,000 children. ECW seeks to grow its resources to USD 1.8 billion by the year 2021.

SDG 4, as well as SDG 16 (peace, justice and strong institutions) will each be the focus of in-depth reviews during the July 2019 session of the UN High-level Political Forum (HLPF). [Gordon Brown Press Statement] [UN Press Release] [ECW Press Release] [ECW Website] [Education Commission Website]