This week, global education leaders and policy makers from around the world gather for the World Education Forum in Incheon, South Korea. The biggest questions on the table are how the international community will secure a quality education for all children around the globe by the year 2030?  What will we do differently or better to achieve over the next 15 years a significant breakthrough in the one sustainable development goal that will drive progress across the global development agenda? Can we create a new financing paradigm that makes possible a much higher level of investment and mutual ownership?

Some answers to these challenging questions may be found in From Billions to Trillions: Transforming Development Finance, a paper jointly prepared by the some of the world’s major development banks. The paper argues that to achieve the new SDGs, the global community must move beyond the traditional donor support to developing countries toward an inclusive model that captures the potential of all finance sources and capacities. This includes traditional donor support, but also domestic financing and private sector investment and capacity aligned for effective use.

The operational model of the Global Partnership for Education represents in microcosm this needed blend of common purpose, national ownership, commitment of domestic resources,  mutual accountability and a focus on results as suggested in the Billions to Trillions proposition.

A US$22 billion gap in external financing

But there is an alarming shortfall between the funding for education that’s currently available and what’s needed to achieve the new sustainable education goal. According to UNESCO’s Global Monitoring Report, bringing quality and universal pre-primary, primary and lower secondary education to low- and lower-middle income countries by 2030 will require US$22 billion more per year in external financing than is currently available.

Raising that much additional financing will be no small feat. Consider that worldwide development assistance for basic education has dropped by almost 7% between 2010 and 2013 while overall global development aid increased by more than 9%. What’s more, there is declining support to fragile and conflict-affected countries where almost 70% all out-of-school children live.

But why place so much more emphasis on financing for education now?

Over the last 15 years we have worked hard to implement the Education for All goals. While there is always room for more innovation and for strengthening the structure of the global education movement, it’s safe to say that today we have a much better idea of what works than we did even a decade ago.

We now have more reliable systems for coordinating the resources of many stakeholders within and outside a given country.  Many developing countries themselves have improved their own capacity to build and sustain their education systems. The new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) hold out a promise to accelerate gains beyond those we’ve seen up to now.

But we can’t move substantially to the next level without more funding. And without a renewed effort to mobilize financing, the SDGs will fall far short of our best hopes.

Growing commitment from developing countries

Developing countries themselves are increasingly doing their part to devote their own resources on education and spend those funds more effectively. At the Global Partnership’s Replenishment conference in Brussels last year, GPE developing country partners pledged a collective increase of $26 billion in domestic financing to education over the next four years. Indeed, GPE developing country partners increase their spending on education on average by 10% as a share of GDP after joining the partnership.

UNESCO has set some important benchmarks for countries to allocate at least 4% to 6% of their gross national product and 15% to 20% of their national budget to education. We need to re-commit to these targets and they should be tracked and monitored. Many developing countries are well on their way to meeting those benchmarks, and some have already done so. Their growing tenacity and dedication for education is a necessary ingredient for success and a good example for donor countries.

Spending education funding more effectively

The task ahead is not only to raise additional financing for education but also to spend it more effectively. At the moment, education financing is not sufficiently benefitting those most in need – the poorest and most marginalized learners.  We need to target our aid to tackle the major bottlenecks in equity and quality and avoid aid fragmentation. Domestic budgets need to be spent more effectively, and we need to work together around a common understanding of the results we hope to achieve. It is important to understand that education aid needs to ensure long-term results, not short-term wins.

The Global Partnership is based on the core principles of country ownership, mutual accountability and aid effectiveness. It works with developing countries over many years to strengthen rigorous and inclusive education policy processes, improve the coordination of national and international education financing, and increase alignment of education support to national sector plans.

The funding model of the Global Partnership follows a needs-based allocation formula that’s based on poverty, education vulnerability and fragility. Seventy percent of available country funding is based on credible, evidence-based and financially sustainable education sector plans, and supports basic education components of the sector as laid out in these plans. Thirty percent of funding is linked to achievement of specific progress in learning quality, education system efficiency and equity.

Better support for education in fragile and conflict-affected countries

I am particularly proud of the work that the Global Partnership has done to support education in fragile and conflict-affected countries, where so many out-of-school children live.

In a few short years, the Global Partnership has become one of the largest funders of education in fragile and conflict-affected countries with 50% of our disbursements in 2014 to such countries. That means more than $250 million in 2014 alone. The Global Partnership is dedicated to continue to work with the humanitarian sector to close the gap in this critically underfunded area.

The time for ambition is now

To achieve such an ambitious agenda for education as contained in the new SDGs will require moving far beyond business as usual.  No plausible increase in financing on its own will achieve the new targets.  The additional post-2015 efforts must leverage all of the current sources of spending in education to focus on equity and quality to achieve better results.  Improved governance and partnerships are essential, and other innovations such as financing for results will also be necessary.

The distance between where education financing is today and where it needs to be is enormous. But it is not insurmountable. Not if all current and potential partners alike summon the will, energy and creativity to commit more to educating every child around the world.  And not if we in the education community make a clear and conclusive case to all that, with education, the fortunes of individuals, whole nations and, indeed, the world improve. It is up to us to make that case.