A new $1.5 billion investment, announced on Thursday, will boost education and skills development for millions of the world's children and youth most in need.
The commitment by the International Finance Facility for Education (IFFEd) will address the dire but often forgotten global education emergency. Currently, 250 million children do not attend school while more than 800 million young people - more than half of the world's youth - will leave school without any skills for the modern workforce.
It will also help bridge the enormous education funding gap, pegged at some $97 billion annually through to 2030.
A historic investment
The commitment, which covers the period through 2025, represents "the largest one-off investment in global education and skills in decades," said UN Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown, who spearheaded IFFEd's development.
The public-private, non-partisan international finance facility specifically targets the massive gap in education financing for lower-middle-income countries (LMICs), home to 1.2 billion children and young people, or nearly half the global total.
LMICs - which include India, Pakistan, Nigeria and Kenya - are caught in the so-called "missing middle". These nations are no longer able eligible to receive grants, but non-concessional financing remains unaffordable, while their limited domestic resources mean there is often little to invest in education and skills.
