Financing for Education in Conflict-Affected Areas Gathers UN Chief and Top State Officials
The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will participate in a special event organized by UNESCO and the Government of Qatar on financing education in countries far from reaching the Education for All goals.
The event takes place on the sidelines of the Financing for Development conference gathering Heads of State and Government ministers in Doha, Qatar, from 29 November to 2 December.
The event will place special emphasis on increasing financing to fragile states – countries in conflict, risk of conflict, post-conflict or in states of early recovery. It is estimated that 37 per cent of out of school children live in situation of conflict or fragility.
Education remains one of the least funded of the sectors in a humanitarian response, despite offering both life-saving and long term benefits to children and communities. Any decrease in education exacerbates inequality by disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable and hardest to reach populations.
The event will be opened by Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned, with remarks made by the UN Secretary-General and Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, President of the 63rd Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations.
During the event, Nicholas Burnett, Assistant Director-General for Education at UNESCO will present key findings from the 2009 Education for All Global Monitoring Report, “Overcoming inequality: why governance matters.”
Discussions among multilateral and bilateral partners and developing countries will focus on alternative financing strategies for fragile, states, and the relationship between state building, development and education.