Canada is committed to ensuring the world’s poorest and most vulnerable children and youth have access to quality education
April 16, 2015 - Washington, D.C. - Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada
Today, the Honourable Christian Paradis, Minister of International Development and La Francophonie, announced that Canada will contribute a total of C$120 million to the Global Partnership for Education, aimed at enhancing education in developing countries. This signals Canada’s continued and deep commitment to promoting education for girls and boys in developing countries.
Canada is also committed to working with key partners, including UN Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown, the Global Partnership for Education, and UNICEF, to ensure that children in crisis situations have opportunities to learn. Minister Paradis announced that Canada is contributing an additional C$10 million to UNICEF for education and child protection in humanitarian crises around the world.
He made the announcement following the Safe Schools: Reaching all Children with Education in Lebanon event during the Spring Meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C. He was joined by UN Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown, the Global Partnership for Education’s Chief Executive Officer, Alice Albright, and UNICEF’s Executive Director, Anthony Lake.
Canada is committed to ensuring the world’s poorest and most vulnerable children and youth have access to quality education in safe and secure environments. Canada's international development programming in basic education is framed by the Securing the Future of Children and Youth strategy, which identifies access to quality basic education as a priority for action for Canada.
Quick Facts The Global Partnership for Education comprises close to 60 developing countries, as well as donor governments, international organizations, the private sector, teachers, and local and global civil society organizations. It has achieved significant results in primary school enrolment, literacy, and girls’ education, particularly in fragile and conflict-affected states.
UNICEF works in 190 countries and territories with a special focus on reaching the most vulnerable and excluded children, to the benefit of all children. In 2014, UNICEF helped provide over 8.6 million children in humanitarian situations around the world with access to basic education.
Improving maternal, newborn and child health is Canada's top development priority. With our global partners, we have achieved remarkable results: fewer women are dying in pregnancy and childbirth, and millions more children are celebrating their fifth birthday.
Quotes
“This will make a real difference in the lives of children in developing countries. It will help to ensure they have access to quality education, which is vital to help them move out of poverty and build prosperous futures. Canada aims to ensure that children not only survive, but have the opportunity to thrive, from their first years of life to adulthood. This is also why we have taken a leadership role worldwide to promote maternal, newborn and child health and to make strides to end child, early and forced marriage.”
-Christian Paradis, Minister of International Development and La Francophonie
“In this crucial year as we approach the MDG deadline for achieving universal education, the new announcements today demonstrate Canada's clear leadership on global education and commitment to the 58 million out-of-school children. I am pleased that Minister Paradis has pledged to do even more to support education for millions of children in conflict-affected areas and humanitarian crises, including Syrian refugees in Lebanon and other neighboring countries.”
-Gordon Brown, UN Special Envoy for Global Education “We are delighted about Canada’s contribution and we are grateful for this increased funding for the next four years and for the government’s leadership on helping improve education in some of the poorest countries around the world, many of them torn by conflict.”
-Alice Albright, Chief Executive Officer of the Global Partnership for Education “A child’s right to education is most at risk during humanitarian crises. Yet those are precisely the times when education is most needed, offering hope, protection and a vital sense of normalcy for children whose lives have been devastated by conflict or natural disaster. That’s why we are so grateful to the Canadian government and people for their continued, generous support to UNICEF's education in emergencies programs.”