Leaders Convene to Discuss Education During World Bank-IMF Spring Meetings
Image by IMFConnect.
This week, thousands of government officials, civil society organizations, journalists, and leaders from academia and the private sector are gathering in Washington, D.C. for the Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group. Seminars, press conferences, and side events on the world economic outlook, poverty eradication, and aid effectiveness, will filter through the joint World Bank-IMF Development Committee’s broader economic development dialogue.
Through a special GBC-Education event taking place alongside the meetings, corporate leaders will be offered a rare opportunity to unite with leaders from government and the public sector to strategize on how they can collaborate to improve the quality of and access to education for millions of children around the world.
Scattered throughout the days leading up to the official three-day meeting will be a Civil Society Policy Forum taking place alongside official World Bank-hosted civil society side events. Topics will range from the status of women and girls, to enhancing emergency responses — the economic and social impact of which will invariably affect all sectors.
For a schedule of civil society events, follow this link.
Not in D.C. during the meetings? Follow the conversation through live webcasts.
GBC-Education to Host ‘Stronger Investments, Greater Impact’
This year, GBC-Education will build off of last April’s high-level meeting by uniting not only business and development agency leaders, but by convening philanthropic leaders from private foundations as well. GBC-Education’s morning event, ‘Stronger Investments, Greater Impact,’ will hone in on how the private sector can partner with the public sector to create education solutions for children around the globe.
GBC-Education’s event will reinforce how the private sector can continue to engage in the global education development agenda. The high-level discussion facilitated by Executive Chair Sarah Brown and Director of Global Strategy Tom Fletcher will feature speakers from businesses, foundations, donors governments such as Kristalina Georgieva, Vice President, European Commission; Akinwumi Adesina, President, African Development Bank; Peter Laugharn, President and CEO, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation; Eric Postel, Associate Administrator, United States Agency for International Development; Rosalind Hudnell, Vice President of Corporate Affairs and President of the Intel Foundation, Intel; and Sir Ronald Cohen, CEO, Portland Trust.
We will be live tweeting the conversation and encourage you to follow us @gbceducation using the hashtags #smartinvestment and #SafeSchools.
Spring Meetings to Offer Platform for Business to Enter Education Dialogue
The Spring Meetings pose a rare opportunity for heads of state to gather alongside leaders from civil society, including business representatives, during consultations that are both formal and informal with the hope of generating a creative dialogue to form comprehensive solutions for global issues, such as blending public and private finance to catalyze global change, and promoting peacebuilding in conflict and fragile environments.
The International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity, which includes three GBC-Education advisory board members as commissioners, will continue to build the investment case for achieving equal education opportunity for children across the world during several high-level meetings to bring forward the latest evidence on investment in education. World Bank President Jim Kim will host the Commission for its third meeting, the financing panel and technology panels will convene, and more than 30 finance and development ministers will meet to discuss domestic and international education financing.
The Spring Meetings create a space for business leaders to contribute and are increasingly important to global development, particularly as conflicts and emergencies reach new heights and humanitarian aid in sectors such as education fails to deliver life-saving resources. Education receives only 1.3 percent of overall humanitarian aid, yet from 2010 to 2013, the world’s out-of-school population jumped to 124 million, in large part because of exacerbating conflicts such as that in Syria. Through inclusive dialogues which traditionally exclude the private sector, sectors can unite to form creative financing solutions to fill gaps in resources where aid cannot.