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#HLFC2023   #222MillionDreams✨📚

The Global Campaign for Education welcomes the Education Cannot Wait High-Level Financing Conference to be held in Geneva on 16-17 February 2023. The unprecedented crisis that affects over 222 million girls and boys around the world needs action from world leaders right away.

The High-Level Financing Conference aims to initiate efforts to raise at least $1.5 billion needed to deliver ECW’s 2023–2026 Strategic Plan and build knowledge of and commitment to education in emergencies and protracted crises (EiEPC).

Since its establishment, GCE has supported Education Cannot Wait, the UN global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, and has played an active role within its governance bodies, campaigns, and other initiatives. Through a pioneering partnership approach,  GCE and ECW work together to mobilise civil society to secure the human right to education for marginalised children and youth left furthest behind due to crises.

The ECW Strategic Plan is aligned with the Sustainable Development Agenda and, in accordance with the Transforming Education Summit, includes follow-up initiatives on mobilising funds in the international community to address crisis-sensitive contexts that have a bearing on education continuity. This has been underscored in GCE calls on the #ProtectEIENow Campaign.

States in general, and particularly donor countries, must prioritise funding for education in emergencies, applying a development-humanitarian-peace nexus approach in accordance with their obligation to allocate 0.7% of their Gross National Income (GNI) to Official Development Assistance (ODA); to date, this is achieved by very few governments.

The Global Campaign for Education considers that progress in financing education in emergencies and crises contexts is conditioned by maintaining cultures of peace and enhancing awareness of the importance of building just and egalitarian societies capable of settling their disputes without resorting to violence. These aims can only be achieved through human rights-based education that is accessible to all, especially girls and women, people with disabilities, internally displaced people, refugees, and asylum seekers, as well as other disadvantaged groups, which requires trained and well-paid teachers with opportunities to participate in decision-making.

Civil Society Organisations (CSO), including youth and student organisations, must be actively included and engaged as key actors in achieving sustainable development goals. Especially in calling states to account for their obligations, which include the expansion of free public, inclusive, and quality education systems.

The Global Campaign for Education calls on states and the international community to make a decisive contribution to the ECW replenishment and ensure that the right to education is guaranteed in emergencies and crises. Special attention should be given to the education crisis situation in Türkiye and Syria created by the devastating earthquake that occurred on the 6th of February, 2023. The GCE calls on the international community to adopt and implement immediate actions that prioritise education in the context of emergencies and step-up responses and reconstruction plans. Education cannot wait. Let's act now!

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The Global Campaign for Education (GCE) is a civil society movement that aims to end exclusion in education. Education is a basic human right, and our mission is to make sure that governments act now to deliver the right of everyone to a free, quality, public education.