Education Cannot Wait is off to a strong start, having exceeded its initial fundraising targets, and gearing up to launch three multi-year programs in Uganda, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh. ECW exceeded its 2017 fundraising target by $20 million, raising a total of $173 million, and aims to raise nearly $4 billion by 2020.
Since 2016 the fund has worked in 16 conflict-affected countries to support quality education for more than 650,000 of the world’s hardest to reach young people. It is also about to initiate programs in September to help South Sudanese refugees who fled to Uganda get schooling. Earlier this year there were discussions about moving ECW from UNICEF to GPE, but the steering group opted to keep the fund at UNICEF until at least 2021.