At the United Nations Transforming Education Summit, world leaders backed the establishment of the first-ever innovative guarantee fund specifically designed to invest in the education of the world’s poorest children and youth—the International Finance Facility for Education (IFFEd).
IFFEd will directly address the devastating global education crisis and learning inequalities that have been exacerbated by the deadly combination of COVID-19, climate change, and conflicts.
It targets the urgent needs of lower-middle-income countries (LMICs) which are home to more than half of the world’s children and youth and where 3 out of 4 young people leave school without the basic skills to thrive.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said, “The International Finance Facility for Education is aimed at getting financing to lower-middle-income countries—home to half the world’s children and youth—and to the majority of the world’s displaced and refugee children. In time, we expect it to grow into a $10 billion facility to educate tomorrow’s generation of young people. I congratulate Special Envoy Gordon Brown and all the countries and institutions involved in getting this facility off the ground. And I urge all international donors and philanthropic organizations to back it.”
Donor governments and multilateral development banks have come together to launch IFFEd and provide an initial $2 billion in additional affordable funding for education programs to be disbursed starting in 2023. IFFEd could unlock an extra $10 billion of additional financing for education and skills by 2030. The groundbreaking new facility uses a mix of sovereign guarantees and donor grants, to provide affordable education financing. In the current resource-constrained environment, IFFEd is a game changer for both donors and LMICs, as it multiplies donor dollars 7 times as compared to traditional aid.
More than 100 leading economists and world leaders signed an open letter calling for the launch of IFFEd to transform the lives of millions of children and young people around the world.
Dr. Reda Hegazy, Minister of Education of Egypt: “In Egypt, like in many of our neighboring countries, our education budget is still trying to cope with the increasing number of children enrolled in education. For us, innovative financing is a must to transform our education system. We welcome the International Finance Facility for Education as an international effort to unlock more affordable financing for education and are committed to harnessing IFFEd’s power to deliver new educational opportunities for Egypt’s children and youth.”
Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands have been at the forefront of the design of this innovation since the start. The facility is in the final stages of registration in Switzerland.
IFFEd will initially focus on the Asia and Africa regions, in collaboration with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the African Development Bank (AfDB), before expanding globally.
IFFEd is a direct response to education budget cuts around the world and the need to leverage scarce resources in the face of compounding crises. From 2019 to 2020, 43 donors reduced their bilateral aid to education, and 40% of low- and lower-middle-income countries reduced their education budgets.
Gordon Brown, UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Education Commission Chair joined the UN Secretary-General and said: “To truly transform education, we need a fundamental shift. Business as usual will not suffice. This is why the International Finance Facility for Education—IFFEd—is such an exciting development for our future generations. IFFEd has the potential to unlock $10 billion in new resources to support half of the world’s most vulnerable children whose pleas to ‘Let Me Learn’ must be heard.”
Countries have underlined the need for IFFEd, and a growing coalition of public and private partners have expressed strong support for IFFEd’s establishment including:
Shehbaz Sharif, Prime Minister of Pakistan: “The recent floods have destroyed over 23,700 schools in our country and have affected 22,000 other schools due to closures, damages, or sheltering families afflicted by the flood damages. The impact on the lives and minds of millions of our children and youth will be felt for years to come. As we work to rebuild from this catastrophe, the new stream of affordable education financing from IFFEd will be crucial to help meet our financing needs to provide an inclusive and quality education for our most vulnerable children and youth.”
Masatsugu Asakawa, President of the Asian Development Bank: “The unprecedented job and learning losses caused by the pandemic require a global coalition and a commitment at scale to mobilize additional financing that will significantly expand support for those in need. ADB is pleased to be a leading partner in taking forward the International Finance Facility for Education initiative in Asia and the Pacific.”