The European Union (EU) announced on April 13 that it will provide an additional €6.5 million for Education Cannot Wait (ECW), a global fund for the education of children in emergencies and protracted crises launched in 2016. This announcement raises the total EU contribution to the ECW to €27.5 million. To date, the EU and its Member States have provided 40% of the ECW funding.
Commissioner for International Partnerships Jutta Urpilainen said: “Vulnerable children, particularly girls, refugees and displaced children have been the worst hit by COVID. At this critical time, we must protect and increase financing to education. And leverage every partnership, to reach these vulnerable children and bring them back to education. The Education Cannot Wait Fund reaches those hardest to reach. It builds bridges between humanitarian and development efforts. It is a lifeline for children who have slipped through the cracks of education systems. So I am delighted to announce today on behalf of the European Commission an additional 6.5 million euros contribution to the Education Cannot Wait Fund. And I call on other leaders to increase their support to this vital partnership.”
Education Cannot Wait enables governments, multilateral institutions and the private sector to support comprehensive education programmes for crisis-affected children and young people. It was designed to be agile and to reach those most vulnerable, excluded and hard-to-reach, including girls, children with disabilities, minorities and other marginalized children, and to bring them back into national education systems.
Besides supporting education programmes in sudden-onset crises, the fund addresses longer-term needs in protracted crises through multi-year resilience programmes. It enables humanitarian and development actors to work together, to:
Provide crisis-affected children access to continuous quality learning
Leave no-one behind
Ensure the children stay in school until they complete their education
Ensure the schools and learning centres offer a safe, protective and healing environment
Improve learning outcomes.
The Education Working Group of ECOPNET (European Cooperation and Partnership Network) gladly welcomes this additional funding by the EU and its Member States to the ECW and continues its work with our partners. Education of children and teenagers will lay the foundation of the next generation, which is why assuring that all children around the world continue their education without any other sharp and lengthy breaks is essential.
Source: European Commission