Tomorrow, the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) will be hosting their first-ever replenishment conference in Copenhagen. Carol Bellamy, chair of the GPE, talks to ONE about the importance of this event and its effect on quality education for the world’s poorest children.
Carol Bellamy inside a classroom in Rwanda
You’ve been an education advocate throughout your career. You’ve worked at UNICEF, World Learning, and now you’re leading the Global Partnership for Education. What was it that drew you to education?
Simply put, nothing has greater impact on reducing poverty than education — and especially girls’ education. Education saves lives as surely as vaccinations and clean water do. Children who receive an education earn more as adults and are able to provide a higher quality of life for their families and communities; the GDP of a developing country increases steadily when all children are educated. And children in fragile states are less likely to engage in violent conflict if they receive an education. The facts are very clear –- we cannot break the cycle of poverty without education.
Action: 19. Time: 5 minutes. Level of difficulty: Easy. For the results of last week’s action, click here.
Right now, we have the opportunity to make a real impact on quality education for the world’s poorest children, but we need your help. The Global Partnership for Education, an organization that helps fund effective educational programs in developing countries, is up for a replenishment next week in Copenhagen.
From now until then, we need to push the US government hard to support this important organization, because we know they have the capacity to do amazing things. Between 2002 and 2009, the Partnership’s developing country partners sent 19 million more kids to school and increased primary school completion to 68 percent. And if donors fully fund the Global Partnership for the next three years, they could help send 25 million more children to primary school.
Using the form below, please write a message to USAID Administrator Raj Shah. Tell him, along with your personal message, that the US should go to Copenhagen with a pledge of $375 million over the next three years for the Global Partnership for Education.
Mali is not the first country that comes up when people describe educational progress sub-Saharan Africa. Ranked as one of the top 25 poorest nations on earth, improvements do not come easily. Yet despite financial issues, Mali has made promising strides in education in the last 10 years. The government of Mali is working with partners to improve the quality of basic and secondary education by training teachers, providing textbooks and other learning materials, installing dedicated reading areas inside classrooms, and transferring direct funds to school to acquire materials locally.
Next week, the Global Partnership for Education will host its first-ever replenishment conference. The event will bring together donors and developing country partners to make commitments for the next three years. This is a decisive moment for the international community; robust support for education is crucial in the lead-up to the 2015 Millennium Development Goal deadline.
A snapshot of the GPE’s infographic. Download the graphic here.
A teacher at the Kidoti Primary School in Tanzania.
We’ve proclaimed a “day” to celebrate everything from ice cream to talking like a pirate, but last Wednesday, the world celebrated a group of people who have touched every one of our lives: teachers.
At ONE, you will often hear the jargon “siloed,” “cross-cutting” and “lens” when referring to our issues affecting global poverty. In reality, all the issues are cross-cutting and work hand-in-hand toward worldwide development. One lens that is important to ONE and gaining the attention of the international community is gender and its role in development objectives. So, let’s put on our gender glasses and take a look at what is happening around this topic.
Please give a warm welcome to Hallie Stevens, ONE’s new policy intern based in Washington, D.C. This is her first blog post, and we are excited to have her on board!
Rwandan schoolgirls.
Rwanda’s transformed education system is one of the greatest success stories to come out of Africa in the last decade. Yet oftentimes, Rwanda is only remembered for its genocide, and rarely for the incredible progress and developments that it has made since then. Rwanda today has completely rebuilt its educational system so that every child in Rwanda has the chance at primary education.
After the death of 80 percent of Rwanda’s intellectuals in the genocide, Rwanda was faced with rebuilding and enhancing their educational system. Rwanda initially implemented a six-year plan to achieve universal primary education (UPE), but because of rapid progress in the first few years, they expanded it into a nine-year plan called the Nine-Year Basic Education Program. This education sector plan was approved by the Education for All-Fast Track Initiative (EFA FTI), known today as the Global Partnership for Education (GPE). The Global Partnership is a multilateral organization that invests in developing countries with promising education sector plans. Thanks to government prioritization, with support from the Global Partnership, today 97 percent of Rwandan children enter primary school.
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