Press release – Shakira and campaigners give G20 leaders 145,000 reasons to back education (July 7, 2017)
As world leaders gathered for the G20 summit in Germany, messages were delivered about the need for major action to get every child in school.
Singer Shakira, international leaders and more than 145,000 campaigners have called on the G20 summit to back education.
“Over 145,000 of you signed a petition to urge all G20 countries to take action on education. That is powerful and inspiring,” Shakira told the crowd at the Global Citizen Festival in Hamburg. “You have shown that we are not going to ignore the 263 millions kids who can’t access an education.”
Campaigners are calling for a new funding plan to get every child in the world into school – the International Finance Facility for Education, which can unlock $10 billion per year.
Shakira added: “There are too many kids at risk of missing their only window of opportunity. We can’t press pause and ask them to wait to grow up until we have it all figured out.”
The action by campaigners has helped to push the right to education in front of the G20 leaders, whose summit starts today. Theirworld and many other leading organisations have been campaigning for action on funding education – including ONE, Global Citizen, Save the Children, Avaaz, Malala Fund, Islamic Relief, VSO and World Vision.
Ben Hewitt, Director of Campaigns for children’s charity Theirworld said: “World leaders have made a promise to get every girl and boy in school. In the next 24 hours we will find out if they are serious about keeping their promises to children.
“An innovative idea is being put to them that could dramatically increase the amount of funding going to global education. If this is backed by those 20 leaders it would result in an additional $10 billion dollars a year for education, this could benefit many of the 800 million children whose futures are at risk.”
ENDS
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Notes to Editors:
About Theirworld: Theirworld is a children’s charity that believes all children everywhere deserve the best start in life. We work for a future where all children are born safely, have a quality education and the chance to change the world. For more information go to www.theirworld.org. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
About IFFED: http://educationcommission.org…