Commit $1.5 billion to education and skills training in lower-middle-income countries
The commitment of the International Finance Facility for Education (IFFEd) will address the often forgotten global education emergency. Today, 250 million children are out of school while more than 800 million young people – more than half of the world’s youth – will leave school without any skills to join the modern workforce.
It would also help close the huge education funding gap, pegged at about $97 billion annually through 2030.
A historic investment
The commitment to extend until 2025 demonstrates “the largest one-time investment in global education and skills in decades,” said United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown, who led the development of IFFed.
Nonpartisan, public-private international financing facility specifically focused on education financing for lower middle-income countries (LMICs), home to 1.2 billion children and youth , or nearly half of the total global population.
LMIC – which includes India, Pakistan, Nigeria and Kenya – is entangled in the so-called “missing in the middle”. These countries are no longer eligible for subsidies, but non-concessional financing remains unaffordable, while limited domestic resources mean education and skills often suffer. best.
‘Creative sponsorship at its best’
IFFEd strengthens the financial strength of multilateral development banks (MDBs) by leveraging a combination of grants and government guarantees in new ways to increase funding for human capital development.
Every dollar of donor cash delivers $7 in funding for education and skills at a national level. LMICs will therefore be able to prioritize investments in these two areas, even in the face of competing needs in climate, health and infrastructure.
Mr. Brown called the $1.5 billion commitment “Finest innovation finance”, stating that “aligning guarantees with grants and loans would provide a way forward to maximize resources for overall international development.”
He called on “governments and private partners to join IFFEd’s financial innovation work to turn millions into billions to unlock opportunities for the world’s children and youth.” need it the most”.
Happy students at a school in the Maasai community in Kajiado County, Kenya.
Transforming millions of lives
IFFEd’s founding sponsors Canada, Sweden and the United Kingdom have committed $342 million in guarantees and capital contributions, plus an additional $100 million in grants.
Several global philanthropies have provided significant seed funding, including the Atlassian Foundation, the Jacobs Foundation, Porticus, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Soros Foundation for Economic Development (the impact investing arm of the Social Foundation Open).
IFFEd Board Chairman, Sir Julian Smith, said: “Inspired by Gordon Brown’s vision, I am delighted that we have now reached the point where we can deliver positive change for life chances of millions of children and adolescents worldwide”.
“We look forward to working with our first MDB partner, the Asian Development Bank, to begin our distribution program.”
Meanwhile, 10 countries in the Asia-Pacific region have been approved as eligible to receive IFFEd funding: Bangladesh, India, Mongolia, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Timor -Leste, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.
IFFEd is also actively engaged in dialogues with other donors and other MDBs including the World Bank and the African Development Bank.
