UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and his special envoy for global education, Gordon Brown, on Saturday launched a multi-billion-dollar International Finance Facility for Education (IFFEd).
With the first projects expected in 2023, IFFEd will support education and skills development investments in lower-middle-income countries. With an initial funding of 2 billion US dollars, the facility is expected to expand to 10 billion dollars by 2030.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, two-thirds of countries have cut their education budgets, but education is the building block of peaceful, prosperous, stable societies, said Guterres at a joint press conference with Brown. “Reducing investment virtually guarantees more serious crises further down the line. We need to get more, not less, money into education systems.”
Wealthy countries can increase funding from domestic sources, but many developing countries are being hit by the cost-of-living crisis, and urgently need support for education, Guterres said, adding that this is exactly the role of the IFFEd.