USAID’s commitment to closing the gap on the Education MDG

Developing countries have succeeded in reducing the number out-of-school primary-aged children by 37 million since 1999. However, progress towards universal access has stagnated, and more than 61 million primary-aged children still remain out of school, with 40% in countries affected by conflict. USAID already works in partnership with many of these countries to increase equitable access to education for learners in crisis or conflict-affected environments.

“Room to Learn”

In these final 1000 days of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), USAID is redoubling its efforts to accomplish Goal 3 of the Education Strategy by focusing on the remaining 28 million children who are still out of school and live in fragile and conflict environments. Working closely with United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education, Gordon Brown and the United Nations Global Education First Initiative, USAID has committed to making a targeted effort to address bottlenecks and challenges to access in: Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Haiti, Nigeria, Pakistan, and South Sudan. This effort will include close examination of USAID’s ongoing and planned programs for ways to better partner, innovate, reduce costs, and maximize impact. To kick off this effort, the United States Government hosted a high-level policy dialogue at the White House with participation from the governments of DRC, Nigeria and South Sudan.

As part of “Room to Learn”, USAID is committed to:

• Working with Ministers of Finance and Education to understand and address critical challenges and bottlenecks facing the education sectors in their countries;
• Retaining education as a high-level U.S. government development priority and reinforce the idea that every child, everywhere should have “Room to Learn”;
• Contributing to the efforts of the Global Education First Initiative, the Global Partnership for Education, donors, private sector, civil society, and developing country partners to generate renewed and additional commitment for evidence-based interventions designed to collaborate on country level education assistance strategies to get children into school and learning.

Access to education is a crucial precondition to educational impact, but what matters most thereafter is the quality of education.

Link between USAID’s “Room to Learn” and the Global Education First Initiative

USAID is working closely with the UN Special Envoy for Education and the Global Education First Initiative on “Room to Learn”. Each of these efforts is based on the premise that education has the power to transform and improve lives. More concretely, Goal 3 of USAID’s Education Strategy, called “Room to Learn”, seeks to increase equitable access to education in crisis and conflict environments. “Room to Learn” is also directly linked with the first two priority areas of Education First: putting every child in school and improving the quality of learning. Both USAID’s “Room to Learn” and Global Education First recognize the connections and dynamics between conflict and education. Over a third of the world’s out-of-school children live in conflict-affected poor countries. In many of these same countries USAID programs are working to increase equitable access to education. These programs help to restore – or build for the first time – the systems and conditions that will make learning successful.

We are looking forward to working with our partners in getting all children in school, particularly those living in fragile and conflict-affected countries.

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