Save the Children's response to Gordon Brown's announcements at Gleneagles
On 5 April 2007, The Chancellor, Gordon Brown and the Secretary of State for International Development, Hilary Benn, set out their vision for delivering education to children affected by conflict or living in fragile states. Read our response.
Thursday 5 April 2007
What they promised
- a £20m grant to UNICEF, to deliver education in emergency, conflict and post-crisis countries, and to support the UN humanitarian cluster for education
- a new rapid response capability to deploy skilled education professionals in humanitarian emergencies
- financial support for education in conflict and post-conflict states, including Nepal (£60m to 2015), Burundi (£6m over 3 years), Sierra Leone (£9m over 4 years) and Somalia (£9m over 3 years)
- support for the education recovery programme in Liberia, via the multi-donor Fast Track Catalytic Fund
- if conditions permit, £50m for education in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where there is an urgent need to restore confidence in the political process and democracy
- further support to education in Afghanistan via the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund
- support to the Fast Track Initiative (FTI) to ensure that support is delivered effectively and flexibly to fragile, conflict and post-conflict states.
Our response
"Education Beyond Borders is the sort of bold, ambitious plan of action that children need. The Chancellor has shown today that he is serious about giving all children the chance to go to school - even those caught up in natural disasters and in war-torn countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo - the hardest to reach places.
"Save the Children's research found that 39 million children are missing out on an education because they live in countries affected by conflict where schools can be destroyed or commandeered by armed forces, teachers are killed or forced to flee, children can be recruited and forced to fight, and are more vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.
"This announcement sends out a clear challenge to the rest of the world's richest countries to raise their game. The UK can't do this on its own. The Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of getting every child into school by 2015 requires global action. We need all of the world's richest countries to come together, as they promised to at Gleneagles two years ago. The G8 must deliver on their commitments and we need events and announcements like today's to be mirrored around the world.
"Save the Children has been calling for this as part of our Rewrite the Future campaign for a long time. We're prepared to play our part." Jasmine Whitbread, Save the Children's Chief Executive
