DEVCO at UNESCO's regional consultation meeting for education

Three years into the 2030 Agenda: Where are we with SDG4 to ensure inclusive quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all?

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Henriette Geiger, Director for People and Peace in EU Commission's DG DEVCO, co-opened the conference with a key note speech with Stefania Giannini, Assistant Secretary-General of UNESO.

The regional consultation meeting with Europe and North America, organised at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg on 24 October, took stock of how these countries are progressing on SDG4 themselves, and the extent to which assistance is given to low and lower middle income countries to reach this goal, in line with the new European Consensus on Development. There was broad agreement we need more effective action to:

• ensure everyone has the right to education, including refugees, IDPs, asylum seeketers, and vulnerable and disadvantaged populations;
• strengthen education for democratic citizenship, sustainable development and sustainable futures for all;
• improve domestic and international financing for education;
• strengthen the monitoring of equity and quality in education.

Henriette Geiger further moderated a panel on financing of education. The panellists – from DG EAC, DG ECHO, Aga Khan Foundation, Norway, and Open Society Foundations – stressed that more funding is needed to provide quality education for everyone and this would need to come from a range of sources. This is key to revers the recent decline in ODA for education; enhance contributions by foundations, the private sector and other non-state actors; and ensure donor and partner countries collaborating to strengthen the latter's domestic resource mobilisation by combatting tax evasion, corruption and illicit financial flows.

Read more on the UNESCO website