A Clear Conscience in Crisis

Our conscience is not tested in the comfort zone. Our conscience reveals itself amidst crisis, and leadership of conscience makes the seemingly impossible possible in such abnormal times. With 234 million children and adolescents suffering in conflicts, disasters and forced displacement, and denied a quality education, such leadership is urgently needed more than ever.

It is in this spirit, on behalf of the whole Education Cannot Wait community, that I warmly congratulate and welcome Sigrid Kaag of the Netherlands as our new Chair of the ECW High-Level Steering Group. As she points out in her high-level interview this month: “ECW and its partners – including donors, the private sector, ministries of education, UN agencies, civil society and local communities – have consistently demonstrated that it is possible to create meaningful change and have a significant impact in the lives of crisis-affected children through education, when we have the funding needed to do it together.”

Indeed, it is possible to have a clear conscience in crises and act upon it.

In the same spirit, I express our wholehearted gratitude to our outgoing HLSG Chair and the founder of ECW The Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown. Together with civil society, UN agencies, donor governments, foundations and private sector, he led the creation of ECW in 2016. Under his leadership, ECW transformed from a start-up enterprise to a full-fledged global fund. With our strategic donor partners, ECW has already mobilized more than US$1.6 billion and has reached over 11 million crisis-impacted children in the toughest contexts around the world.

Still, we have a long way to go. Nearly a quarter of a billion innocent children and adolescents painfully continue to endure the most unconscionable and cruel crises. Our response to their suffering and losses lay bare our own conscience and how we relate to all that.

With a laser sharp focus, determination and resolve, we can find extraordinary solutions to abnormal problems, again and again. The resources exist. 

The vast wealth and abundance in the world’s wealthiest countries – the G20 countries – have a combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP) representing about 80% of all global economic output. This was estimated at around US$167.9 trillion in 2024. Military spending, in 2023 alone, amounted to around US$2.4 trillion. Now, it is on the rise again.

And yet, we face a massive funding deficit for education through humanitarian appeals. According to OCHA’s Financial Tracking Service, only US$171 million of the US$1.8 billion humanitarian appeal for education has been funded.

How can we live with a clear conscience in a world where we spend trillions on destruction, and can’t afford to invest just 0.075% of that into something so productive as education for children, suffering in emergencies and protracted crises? There must be a more constructive solution to turn those figures around.

Another not so distant comparison is that of the worldwide gambling market. It is projected to reach around US$471 billion in 2025. That is half a trillion dollars.

Education is neither a risk nor a gamble. On the contrary, it has been proven to yield five-fold returns on investments, while also securing peace, security and stability.

Timely indeed, this month, the United Nations commemorated the International Day of Conscience, stating loud and clear that “in the face of ongoing global challenges and conflicts, we must commit to the promotion of greater tolerance, understanding and dialogue.”

We live in a world of great abundance – despite uncertainty – and we must make a conscious effort to harness that abundance by investing in the education of children and adolescents whose very future depends on us.

We must and will continue with a steadfast conscience and conviction to deliver a quality education for the young generation left furthest behind. With only an additional US$600 million, we can make the right choice and take speedy action to deliver quality education to 20 million children and adolescents by 2026.

To paraphrase William Wilberforce, who once said, “We may choose to look the other way, but we can never say again that we did not know.”