Sarah Brown: GPE funding means final push is on to deliver Education For All

Children at a refugee camp in Kenya Picture: UNESCO/D. Willetts

 

By Sarah Brown, co-founder of A World at School

Today marked an important step in the global education campaign. At the replenishment of the Global Partnership for Education, the multilateral partnership working to get children a quality education in the world’s poorest countries, billions of dollars in support of universal education. 

Now we look forward to seeing these resources delivered and put into action to deliver results for children.

Over the next 18 months, A World at School will embark on the #EducationCountdown campaign to ensure that all of the pledges and promises are kept and that we – for the first time in history – actually do deliver education to every child by the end of 2015. 

In April we launched a plan of action at the Countdown Summit in Washington, DC, with more than 100 civil society and United Nations organisations joining youth leaders, businesses and faith groups, alongside UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, UN Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown and other distinguished guests.

With our action plan in place, A World at School will now mobilise for this final push. We know that this will require an unprecedented amount of activism and a dedicated focus on the actions for education of world leaders.

We have seen what activism can achieve in recent decades from campaigns to Drop the Debt, Make Poverty History, improve child survival and reduce maternal mortality. We can do it again with Education for All and have many more means of communication and campaigning tools at our disposal.

Everyone must continue to keep up the momentum from today, as the various advocacy campaigns and initiatives will need to point in one direction – reaching universal education now.

Sarah Brown with schoolchildren in Ghana Picture: Comic Relief

The Global Business Coalition for Education and the Global Faiths Coalition for Education will mobilise their constituencies. The NGOs and civil society organisations will continue to guide the advocacy asks that we will take to the public. 

The A World at School Global Youth Ambassadors – from more than 80 countries – will continue to mobilise on the ground and grow with the newest cohort of 500 Pakistani youth now signing up.

And we will work with partners, like Education International, so that the voices of more than 30 million teachers are heard.

Every 100 days, we will have short-term and long-term targets. And every 100 days we will have results. 

New government commitments, more money for education in emergencies, more child marriage-free zones, reductions in child labour and a growing number of children in school and learning.

Starting now, our immediate focus is on children in conflict and displaced from their homes.

Be part of the campaign to reach our goal. Today was a significant moment for education – and now we must harness the energy for a final push to get every child to school.

Join the #EducationCountdown today. Sign up your friends to aworldatschool.org – using the Join the Movement tab at the top of this page – and we will keep sending you ways you can join in and we can take action together.