Speaking on a panel hosted by the Center for Global Development and the World Bank, Gordon Brown, former UK Primer Minister and current chair of the Education Commission, declared that ensuring every child has access to education is “the civil rights struggle of our time.” The number of primary-school aged children not in school is increasing while international and domestic finance for education is falling short of what is needed to meet the goals of SDG 4, which calls for inclusive, equitable and quality education for all children by 2030.
Amidst concerns that by 2030 more than 50% of the world’s children will not have received the qualifications required to compete in the modern labor force, the Education Commission is proposing the creation of the International Finance Facility for Education to address the financing gap. Brown stressed that this coalition of donors and multilateral development banks will work alongside global education champion institutions like GPE to coalesce additional funding and help improve curricula as well as train teachers.