United Nations, September 9: The UN global fund for education in emergencies, Education Cannot Wait (ECW), on Friday called on world leaders to scale up financial support to aid in emergencies and protracted crises.
The plea was launched as world leaders are gathering at the UN headquarters in New York in 10 days for the General Debate of the UN General Assembly.
The ECW's 2022 Annual Results Report said the fund and its global partners reached 8.8 million children with quality, holistic education since its founding in 2016 and more than 4.2 million last year alone.
The report said total available funding has grown by more than 57 percent over three years, from 699 million U.S. dollars in 2019 to more than 1.1 billion dollars in 2022.
However, the needs have skyrocketed over recent years. Funding asks for education in emergencies within humanitarian appeals have nearly tripled from 1.1 billion dollars in 2019 to almost 3 billion dollars at the end of 2022. In 2022, only 30 percent of education requirements were funded, indicating a widening gap, it said.
The fund said that some of its largest donors have not yet committed money for the entire 2023-2026 period, and there remains a gap in financing for the private sector, foundations and philanthropic donors.
In the first half of 2023, the fund faces a funding gap of approximately 670 million dollars to fully finance results under the Strategic Plan 2023-2026, which will reach 20 million children over the next three years, said the ECW.
Source: Xinhua