How Business Can Support the Global Partnership for Education’s Replenishment Efforts
Girls at school in South Sudan. Photo by Laura Pannack/Oxfam
“The business community has a unique and complementary role in solving education challenges,” Alice Albright – CEO of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) – stated during the Global Business Coalition for Education (GBC-Education’s) quarterly webinar last Wednesday. With GPE working to deliver education to children in the poorest countries, the private sector has the opportunity to contribute through its talents, resources, and capabilities.
GPE was established in 2002 as a global fund that focuses on getting all children into school for a quality education in the world’s poorest countries. In 2016, the Education Commission outlined in its seminal report – The Learning Generation – that GPE needs to increase its funding to ensure that the world addresses the current crisis in education. 264 million of children are out-of-school today, and millions more will be out-of-school by 2030 if the international community doesn’t stand up and support quality education.
Through its replenishment process, GPE seeks to refinance for the three years between 2018 and 2020 – with a goal of reaching US$2billion a year by 2020. These funds are needed to deliver educational opportunities to children in developing countries – many of whom are experiencing a shortage of teachers, schools, and educational resources.
In her presentation, Alice Albright highlighted a couple of avenues through which business can support GPE’s replenishment efforts:
- Sponsorship – providing financial sponsorship for events throughout the Financing Conference in Dakar, Senegal on February 2, 2018
- Data Challenge engagement – support the development of a new online digital data platform to improve the consistency and timeliness of data from recipient countries
Ms. Albright also outlined other ways for business can get involved, with opportunities to participate in disaster relief reduction along with thematic engagement avenues, focused on topics such as girls’ education, early childhood development, and teachers and learning.
By the end of the webinar, business had the opportunity to ask questions on GPE’s approach to the private sector. A company representative from HP asked how business can support through in-kind or other non-financial assets. In reply, Ms. Albright stated that, “bringing problem solving and forms of expertise are a form of contribution…we have to be strategic in how we approach our challenges”.
The Global Business Coalition for Education supports GPE’s efforts to bring quality education to all, emphasizing the importance of involving the private sector in seeking to fulfill Sustainable Development Goal 4.
If your business is interested in supporting the Global Partnership for Education’s replenishment efforts OR participating in GPE’s Financing Conference taking place on February 2, 2018 in Dakar, Senegal, please contact Catalina Caro at [email protected] for more information.