In the News

At the first Global Refugee Forum in December 2019, GPE committed to more and better financing to scale up quality learning for refugees.

GPE also pledged to support inclusive and resilient systems to ensure quality education for refugees. These commitments have translated into concrete actions across multiple partner countries. 

GPE also joined Education Cannot Wait (ECW) and the World Bank in a pledge “to work together to close the education financing gap and provide technical assistance in refugee-hosting countries”. This joint pledge aimed to improve the coordination and financing of education for refugees and host communities.

Dubai Cares made history at the 2nd edition of the RewirEd Summit, by bringing education to the forefront of the climate agenda at COP28. Featuring more than 1,000 participants, including 2 heads of state, 22 ministers, and 28 CEOs, with 260 speakers, representing 209 entities and 76 countries, the RewirEd Summit brought the education and climate sectors together under one roof for the first time in the history of all COPs as the flagship education summit of COP28, to position education transformation as a key enabler of sustainable development.

Moreover, Dubai Cares announced the spin-off of the RewirEd Summit as an independent standalone global platform led by a global board, announcing its co-chairs as Laura Frigenti, Chief Executive Officer, Global Partnership for Education (GPE); Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait (ECW); and Dr. Tariq Al Gurg, Chief Executive Officer and Vice-Chairman of Dubai Cares.

The “Education Without Limits Campaign: I learn here or there” is an initiative of the Regional Education Group for Latin America and the Caribbean (GRE-LAC) within the framework of the Regional component of the Multi-Year Resilience Program (MYRP) with funding from Education Cannot Wait (ECW) and the Government of Canada from the leadership of Save the Children, to make visible the educational crisis experienced by children and adolescents in a situation of mobility, in addition to promoting their access to and permanence in educational services, and to publicize the positive impact on a host community of children and adolescents in a situation of human mobility having access to this right.

The Muna Garage IDP Camp school, established in 2015 by UNICEF in partnership with the state government, provides a literacy and numeracy programme for children affected by conflict.

In 2019, UNICEF started supporting the school through funding from Education Cannot Wait (ECW), recruiting 16 volunteer teachers in addition to the five government-provided teachers. The ECW funds also assisted in the provision of textbooks and writing materials for students and teachers.

Established in 2012, EAA, alongside other Qatari entities, has provided a vital lifeline for students forced out of their classrooms globally due to crises and conflict. 

Last year, EAA pledged $20 million to back the UN’s Education Cannot Wait (ECW) initiative in an effort to support children around the world who have been denied the right to access education.

The ECW is a UN “global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises” aimed at benefiting 222 million children and adolescents affected by crises. 

Kurdistan, Iraq - Supporting the education system in Iraq requires all the possible efforts. Despite its current challenges, a collaborative and resolute approach can pave the way for the restoration and revitalization of the education system, thereby play an important role in supporting the recovery of the country. People in Need (PIN) launched a project aimed at assisting students, teachers and schools in northern Iraq. This spanned from January to December 2023.

Co-funded by the Czech Republic’s Foreign Development Cooperation (CZDA) and Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the project provided a comprehensive range of activities including remedial classes, school greening, climate change awareness, student club activities, Kurdish language courses, psychological-social support, and training for teachers and Department of Education to help vulnerable students and the education sector in the north of Iraq.

Yasmine Sherif is the Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait (ECW). A lawyer specialized in International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law (LL.M), she has over 30 years of experience with the United Nations and international NGOs.

Ms. Sherif has served in some of the most crisis-affected areas of the world, including Afghanistan, the Middle East, the Balkans, Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan as well as in New York and Geneva. She has led high-level missions to numerous conflict and crisis-affected countries. Her expertise spans across the education, humanitarian, development, human rights, gender and peacekeeping spectrum.

She is the author of the book, The Case for Humanity: An Extraordinary Session, and a Champion for ‘No Lost Generation.’ In 2017, she received the annual award Sweden’s UN Friend of the Year, in 2020 she was awarded the Global Educator Award in the United States, and in 2022 she received on behalf of Education Cannot Wait, the prestigious Mother Teresa Award.

The International Disability Alliance (IDA) and Inclusion International are pleased to announce their work on a new project that aims to improve access to inclusive education for children with disabilities in emergency situations. 

This project was made possible through funding from Education Cannot Wait (ECW)’s Acceleration Facility – a funding pool designed to address systemic barriers to education in emergencies.

Durante los últimos tres años, World Vision ha llevado a cabo la iniciativa “La educación no puede esperar”, con el fin de facilitar el acceso a una educación de calidad a niños y adolescentes migrantes y refugiados en Colombia. Este proyecto, respaldado por Education Cannot Wait y la Embajada de Canadá, ha alcanzado a cerca de 39.000 beneficiarios, incluyendo familias, en un esfuerzo conjunto por mitigar las barreras educativas que enfrenta esta población vulnerable.

La crise sécuritaire a fortement impacté l’éducation au Burkina Faso. Les régions à forts défis sécuritaires enregistrent, au-delà des besoins humanitaires globaux, une batterie de problèmes liés à l’accès à une éducation de qualité. La région du Nord est une synthèse de toutes ces difficultés. C’est ainsi que Plan Burkina et ses partenaires que sont l’UNICEF, l’ONG Education Cannot Wait (ECW) et l’Etat burkinabè, à travers le Projet pluriannuel de réponse aux urgences dans la région du Nord du Burkina Faso (MYRP), ont décidé de voler au secours des acteurs de l’éducation dans cette partie du pays. L’objectif à terme du projet est de contribuer à l’accès à un format d’éducation qui assure une continuité éducative de qualité dans le respect des normes sécuritaires, sanitaires, organisationnelles et pédagogiques instituées par le gouvernement pour les enfants de 3 à 17 ans vulnérables ou en situation d’urgence.

Amid the escalating impacts of climate change worldwide, robust data systems for education are critical to better understanding how learners are affected by climate change. Almost one billion children live in high-risk countries, susceptible to the impacts of climate change, including droughts, floods, and cyclones.

Ensuring quality education in crisis-affected settings is also essential for achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4). However, many governments and partners lack disaggregated, reliable, and up-to-date data for effective preparedness, response, and recovery planning. This can hinder the development of strategic plans and programmes and hamper coordination among the many involved stakeholders.   

On the sixth United Nations International Day of Education, the charity Education Cannot Wait called on world leaders to “end wars and armed conflicts and focus on our common humanity to embrace the vast potential that learning offers in uniting our world.”

The charity said the world is being torn apart by injustice, oppression, racism, xenophobia, fear, greed and violent means of conflict resolution. In Gaza, no child — among over 600,000 girls and boys — has access to education. In Afghanistan, 2.5 million school-aged girls and women — around 80 per cent — are out of school because of their sex, systematically denied their human right to an education.

ECW said: “Around 224 million children, impacted by the compounding forces of armed conflicts, climate change and forced displacement, are in dire, urgent need of quality education. Instead of investing in more wars, leading to more human suffering, injustices and extreme poverty, let us heed the words of Nelson Mandela: ‘Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world’.”