Global Education Summit Side Event: Meeting the Education Needs of Displaced Children and Young People

United Kingdom, Canada, UNHCR & ECW Global High-Level Discussion highlights new ways to reach the world’s most vulnerable children & youth, during this Global Education Summit official side event

By the end of 2020 more than 82 million people were forcibly displaced – of which 33 million were under 18. Children and youth displaced by conflict and crisis risk dropping out of school and never returning, especially girls and learners with disabilities.

The United Kingdom, Canada, UNHCR and Education Cannot Wait convened a global, high-level discussion on 27 July 2021 to highlight the education needs of displaced children at risk of being left further behind as we prepare for a post-COVID-19 world. During this official side event of the Global Education Summit, participants heard from refugee and internally displaced youth on international community’s role in supporting them to learn, and their own vision for education for vulnerable, displaced communities.

The Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown, UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Chair of Education Cannot Wait’s High-Level Steering Group, opened the event which included expert discussions with: Yasmine Sherif (Director, Education Cannot Wait), Karina Gould (Minister of International Development, Canada), Stanislas Ouaro (Minister of Education, Burkina Faso), Jennifer Sklar (Senior Director Education, International Rescue Committee), J Lawrence Aber (Willner Professor of Psychology & Public Policy, NYU Steinhardt), Jean Marie Ishimwe (Refugee Youth Representative, Kenya), Wendy Morton (Minister for European Neighbourhood and the Americas, UK), Shafqat Mahmood (Federal Minister for Education & Professional Training, Pakistan), Meghan Kellner (Associate Director of Education & Adolescent Development, BRAC), ‘Razia’, an Afghan Female Teacher (pseudonym), Asma Rabi (Refugee Youth Representative, Pakistan), David Miliband (CEO/President, International Rescue Committee), Raouf Mazou (Assistant High Commissioner, Operations, UNHCR), Rebecca Telford (Moderator; Chief, Education Section, UNHCR).

Scroll through for key quotes and calls to action from the global high-level discussion speakers as the world comes together to ignite action to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, including SDG4. Further below is a video recording of the full event. You may also wish to dive deeper with this incisive feature from InterPress News Service.