 So good afternoon, my name is Finola Finnan, I'm the Deputy CEO in Throgra and I'm the Chair of the Docus Network and I'm really pleased to welcome you for this, the fifth webinar in the IIE Development Matters Lecture Series supported by Irish Aid. We are absolutely delighted to be joined today by Ms Yasmin Sharif, the Director of Education Cannot Wait and who's been generous enough to give her time, a very busy schedule to speak to us, so thank you. Education Cannot Wait is a global fund for education and emergencies and protected crisis, established at the World Humanitarian Summit and hosted by UNICEF. A human rights lawyer with 30 years of experience in international affairs, Ms Sharif joined the United Nations in 1988 and served in New York, Geneva and in many crisis affected countries in Africa, Asia, the Balkans and the Middle East. The topic she'll speak to is Africa's forgotten crisis, global education, COVID-19 and the climate emergency. The triple crisis of COVID climate and conflict has had and continues to have a devastating impact on the lives of millions of children, including in education. Ms Sharif will speak to her vision of how to mitigate the impact of these intersecting crises at a time of unprecedented need. And this conversation is timely in the wake of the UN General Assembly in New York, ahead of COP26 and as Ireland continues its term on the Security Council. You'll be able to join the discussion using the question and answer function on Zoom, which you should see on your screen and please feel free to send your questions in throughout the session as they occur to you and we'll come to them once Ms Sharif has finished her presentation. I would ask you please to identify yourself and your organization or affiliation if that's appropriate in the question and answer function. I'd also like to remind you that today's presentation and question and answers are on the record. Please feel free to join the discussion on Twitter using that handle at IIEA. We're also live streaming this afternoon's discussion so a very warm welcome to all of you who are joining via YouTube. Ms Sharif will speak to us for about 20 minutes and then we will go into the Q&A questions with the audience. But before I hand over to her I'd like to give the floor to Rory DeBurke who's the Director-General of Irish Aid to deliver some opening remarks and as we all know a better world Ireland's policy for international development sets out a clear ambition to increase our support for education especially for girls in emergencies and it continues Ireland's long tradition of supporting education. So over to you Rory, thank you. Thanks Vanilla and hello everyone I'm particularly delighted to be here to welcome Yasmin because I think Yasmin is a pioneer. Education is something that we know from our own story how important education is for development. But one of the challenges I think in development has been that separation between humanitarian the next question between humanitarian action and development and that has meant that traditionally education was always viewed as a development question rather than something that had to happen in crisis situations and Yasmin has been a pioneer in bringing to our attention the need to give education in crisis situations and particularly in prolonged humanitarian emergencies. Many children spend their entire education lifetime in refugee camps for example. So the formation and direction of education can't wait since the global humanitarian summit in 2016 is something which Yasmin has led and she's challenged many of us to think again about how we allocate money and the kinds of questions that we as donors or as organisations ask around our intent and she's been very inspirational of building political support but also putting in place real practical measures to deliver education to people in really difficult circumstances and I was privileged to be at a meeting with Yasmin earlier in the week where the question of what education can't wait or cannot wait would do and was doing in Afghanistan was very present and in the room and I think we've all sort of the events over the last six eight weeks have really you know reminded us all how important that question is. Irish Aid is proud to be a supporter of education cannot wait but I'm particularly pleased that Yasmin is going to talk to us today you know on on the linked question of education with covid and the climate emergency because you know it's it's unfortunate but it's true that too many children particularly in Africa which will be the focus have had their education broken by by covid many girls won't come back to school unfortunately and will fall into early marriage and other poverty traps as a consequence you know male preference is definitely back on the table and what we've seen over the last year I think in through the pandemic you know will only be amplified as the climate emergency gets unfortunately more marked so I'm really looking forward to hearing what Yasmin has to say and I think it'll be both profound and provocative because that's who Yasmin is and I think she will leave us with some really really good questions you know to on which to reflect and take forward as we work you know as donors or in agencies or in our engagement with with those whom we want to influence on questions to do with development so Yasmin really delighted that you're with us here today and I'm really looking forward to hearing what you have to say so thank you. Well first of all thank you so much Rory for those very kind words I'm not sure I deserve them all but you have been very generous thank you very very much and thank you for all also for your introduction making me feel very welcome I'd like to start off by thanking Irish aid and the Institute of International European Affairs to organize this very very important event it's important for all of us globally and also I know it's not yesterday but to congratulate the government of Ireland for making it into the Security Council your voice is much needed in today's ward to steer multilateralists back to human rights and that is something that you have made a mark on all of us for decades and the long history so thank you very much for that Vivian I'm very happy when I saw that Ireland made it into the Security Council and I hope that we can bring education into the Security Council through you incorporate on that and maybe I should start my colleagues are telling me please start off also by saying that your your your article on education my article on education must come first was just published by the project syndicate today and and I think we are all provocative here certainly I know that Ireland is a provocative and profound country so I look forward to making that connection now in impact and I'll start you now with the impact of COVID-19 on education across the globe so the United Nations and I'm going to switch over to my points here so I can read and look at your eyes so the United Nations estimates that since March 2020 1.5 billion children and youth have experienced prolonged interruption to their education caused by school closures during the pandemic and UNICEF has found that 31 percent of students lack access to remote and distance learning opportunities 31 percent has a huge number in the world population and in the absence of such opportunities children and youth have experienced learning losses that are equivalent equivalent to appear far longer than the ratio of the actual school disorders now these learning losses are likely to impact the poorest and the most marginalized children and youth remember this one you have a crisis a pandemic like this it will always be those left furthest behind already before it took place that we'd be the most impacted because they have the less preparedness and the less socio-economic resources to actually protect themselves in the midst of a pandemic or other global parallel so they are the ones that have the fewest opportunities to continue their education because of disruption and I'm here speaking on behalf as education cannot wait for the children who are caught in armed conflicts who are already living in forced displacement as refugees are in turn displaced or affected by climate and news disasters and then on top of it and of course they are all affected by extreme poverty by the fault of their situation and then on top of it we have a pandemic such as the COVID-19 so given these background numbers many of these children and young people or adolescents are now at risk of never returning to schools ever again when schools are reopening just imagine never returning to school and here we need to stress the situation of girls they are have a much stronger threat an increased drop of dropout due to also to violence that's an additional trauma into the life besides the crisis context and the pandemic but girls nonetheless and girls are at increased risk because of violence at home social pressure such as early marriage and here UNESCO estimates that 11 million girls will drop out of school due to them economic impacts COVID affected course by COVID-19 11 million girls will never go back to school they get pregnant they will be subjected to sexual gender-based violence gender-based violence when early marriages and so we're speaking about millions of girls here who are in the zone of absolute threat to their existence and future now even when a girl remains in school it is estimated that they normally undertake three times more caring responsibilities than boys so besides being in school being in a conflict being a refugee COVID-19 even if they are in school they also have to cater to household scores and many other responsibilities and we have seen evidence from this they're doing the Ebola crisis in Africa which will show that the girls bore the brunt of the responsibility for caring for sick family members and this of course also had a significant impact on their learning so we now experience the similar dynamics of girls at risk as a result of COVID-19 it should also be born in the mind that the learning losses that were caused by the pandemic could also will result in lost earning amounting to a tenth of the global GDP a tenth of the global GDP and the failure of course to achieve the foundational skills has profoundly negative consequences for individual children and other lessons and their ability to fulfill their story to live their life tell them and achieve their potential and and be of use to their societies and the world at large so and this again is going to be felt by those who are suffering extreme poverty in the midst of a conflict in the midst of a refugee situation in the midst of a climate induced disaster and the pandemic I just need to keep repeating we are speaking about shilling and youth that are within the mission of education cannot wait that have lost everything and are suffering and jarring a total deprivation of all their human rights with education at the heart of it so so so it's not just one trauma or one crisis it's all possible crisis that can impact the child and other lessons and that's why the mission of education cannot wait has to be a bit more forceful than normal because we are speaking up for those who are suffering brute force now we come to Africa we all agree Africa is the forgotten crisis of the world in Africa the impacts of covid 19 has has created against the prolongation of the fact that these are very proved throughout the prolonged crisis so covid 19 has just added to that take a country like the democratic republic of Congo there's been a conflict and it says and now we're suffering multiple conflicts internally since the 60s if not earlier and many african countries are on the front line of climate emergency and extreme weather conditions and we see the certification we see conflicts between pastoralists and agriculturalists so there's a direct correlation between their suffering their struggle for survival and what is actually happening to the agribus land and the and the scarcity of resources and natural resources and as a result of that in in in in africa about 40 million children and youth are having their education disrupted every year 40 million children and youth in africa every year every year 10 years 400 million so just keep multiplying those figures uh in just to give examples in sambya kenya and madagascar they have experienced a chronic food crisis over the past year um and their worsening existing development challenge has been there for a while they have now led to humanitarian emergencies which are under reported that's why they have forgotten in Somalia migration related to climate crisis has and Somalia is a country where climate is important for their survival and because of the climate crisis has exacerbated besides conflict between signs of violence besides terror has exacerbated displacement um further um from in addition to the ongoing conflict and in 2020 displacement related to this concurrent crisis in Somalia led to girls enrollment dropping girls enrollment just in Somalia in 2020 their enrollment dropped from 45 percent to 29 percent and it just keeps dropping it's important to be in mind they're not dealing with status quo it's it's we are dealing with something that is heading towards the abyss we are going just plunging this this children and youth and girls are plunging into the abyss when it's up to you to save them before they hit the ground and are smashed now the covid 19 pandemic has claimed 100 000 african lives and nearly four million cases have been recorded today four million covid cases recorded today that's a huge number now the effects of the pandemic as i have said have compound crisis um however who were there before covid and who have actually been worsening doing a covid in africa and of course these are these are realities of abnormal situations for them um and and and they will continuously be disastrous for many children and young people across the entire african continent whose families have migrated as a result of flood drought and other climate disasters and conflict so so we are speaking again and extreme poverty and the possibility of famine so these children urgently need remedial action to tackle uh and access learning equalities so that we can prevent further dropout and we we need to meet the educational needs of them um and and make sure that they can access equality inclusive education that pays particular attention to girls and also children with disabilities and other marginalized group and i i i just want to stress this because i know how important this is for island and and as as as also what i was introduced i'm a human rights lawyer by training education is the very foundation for human rights yes imagine to to achieve due process right to work um good governance uh fairness socioeconomic equity without an educated nation it's logically not possible so education is the stepping stone to achieve all other human rights it's the stepping stone to achieve all other sustainable development goals and that's why i always say when we make our priorities as a as a as a as a as a as a strategic donor partner do we want to fill holes or do we want to put the foundation in place to achieve all human rights and all sustainable development goals while education for those left furthest behind is that foundation so it's it's also logically how do we most cost effectively manage taxpayers money to achieve more rights more sustainable development goes through one investment rather than scattering our investments now i want to bring you back to the to the realities on the ground and as we call on world leaders and here i count the security council uh amongst them but there are world leaders in 193 member states of the united nations and there are world leaders in the private sectors and those who sit with enormous financial resources is i want all of us to be transported back to the reality and i can go back to april when mr philippo grande of the high commission of human rights and i together traveled to modality refugee site in north obangie province of the democratic republic of kongol which is at the border of central afghan republic it was a seven and a half hour trip he has to go back and forth uh from kinshasa over dirt roads flying um um bullet proof car and so forth um and of course our journey was nothing compared to the journey of the refugees we met who was much more um um traumatizing they have been fleeing across the forest for weeks with barely the clothes on their bodies and we went to meet with them and what we witnessed at the border between the democratic republic of kongol and central afghan republic was an absolutely profound humanitarian crisis of human suffering in its extreme laid bare for young young people for children girls and boys adolescents um and um and amounting to 4.7 million of them who were in need of urgent life-saving protection and education 17 76 70 percent of these children from the central african republic when they use have never been to a school before i mean just imagine that they had been so forgotten we only found them when we went to the border and they became refugees they never gone to a school so here we we see we saw and i think they represent an entire generation of children and youth that are at risk to be left so far behind that they will never ever catch impossible and here not to forget the trauma they suffered the need for mental health and psychosocial support you have to help them sit in a classroom you have to be able to absorb learning you know the brain capacity the ability to become focused concentrated they're speaking about the need for massive resources to give them a holistic education that make them healthy learners uh because they have fled chaos that we cannot even imagine chaos of rapes seeing the mother's rape the sister's raped the father is killed and so forth i mean the cruelty is gruesome and is inexplicable um so if anyone in the world deserves our support and sharing and solidarity it's them and um they come there and they've lost everything they're totally dispossessed and they live in far from their homes they hardly have food to eat and if we don't come in and support them with education the protective environment the mental health the school nutrition and give them a hope well what do people without hope do what do they do what will we do when we lose hope and i think it's important to take a step back and reflect on that and that it requires our empathy to do so now in central african republic and i said that 70 percent of those who are arriving have never gone to school one in every four schools in in south of african republic is non-functional because of the fighting that has taken place uh and half of the country's children are out of school and they are the lost girls and the lost boys of african and this central african republic are the children are not lost in drc they have also fled across the border into kameron into chad and other neighboring countries and then on top of it as we have seen when we discuss the safe schools declaration and international humanitarian law and international human rights law is that we see crimes against humanity and war crimes in that their schools that are supposed to be protected under these legal frameworks and declarations are being targeted for attacks students are attacked the teachers are attacked and the communities live in constant fear try to just imagine how education can be a procedural threat for a child to learn an environment like that you constantly have to look over your shoulders you don't have to go to school because you might be kidnapped by boko haram um the reports that we see in north and burkina faso the children are so scared of even being caught with the learning materials so when they do their homework they sit in the sand ready you know and draw their homework just in case somebody appears that threaten them with their lives for learning so they quickly can erase the sand this is the the creativity of the children and the teachers but it also shows the absurdity of it all that's that's the kind of fear that they experience just to exercise their right to learn and the right to learn meaning the right to be a human being evolvement or learning is part of a human journey they have to erase it as fast as possible in the sand to save their life that's how they live and with the recent earthquake in haiti if you allow me to move to the rest of the world because suffering is just all encompassing our globe today humanity is in a huge crisis yeah with the recent earthquake in haiti now and operating context in afghanistan africans in a crisis are often well they're easily forgotten we also have to to have a look at afghanistan and haiti without losing the sight of africa which overall for a long and will always be those absolutely left furthest behind that we do of course need to be very strong on girls education in afghanistan i have worked and lived there fairly familiar with the country and will will lead the mission there in october and we have just released two first emergency responses to both afghanistan and to haiti but let us go back to africa the scale of this crisis are staggering you according to unhr sub-saharan africa hosts more than 26 percent of the refugees word population over 18 million people in in the region in africa 18 million people are concerned to unhr and that number has soared in recent years partly due to the ongoing crisis in central africa and publica in nigeria and in sudan but it's also as a result of new conflicts which has erupted in barundi etiopia and in yemen so the worst attention is to easily grab by other headline events and so they lose out on their education because they just don't make it to the news and that's where education we have a fantastic advocacy team and we have a fantastic ex-coven high-level steering group they work with us to get this out but that's why we are there to try to get the news attention this year we have seen in burkina faso the deterioration within a further 1.4 million uh internal displaced this is an increase of four percent in july this year alone and the neighboring nigeria we have seen the brown and instability across the whole sahel that and sahel hosts the largest numbers of refugees in internal displaced in the region and we are launching a big program in murb and i hope to be there personally in in ten days um but unhr's refugees uh has has estimated in nigeria they have reached that six hundred thousand over a million refugees idpris and asylum seekers due to the insecurity of armed attacks and in kameroom and jan egeland on the norwegian refugee council the secretary general of the nigeria refugee council reported as the most neglected crisis affected on the country uh country on earth so we have three concurrent pro-target crisis here three concurrent pro-target crisis in different parts of one country in kameroom there are three countries uh in in one country impact in thousands of children in terms of the right to equality education and kameroom of all neglected crisis come around top loss the loss the the list of the most neglected crisis and again educational account not way to provide it first the money is in response and are coming in with a big multi-year investment to which of course all our partners can contribute and these are these are joint programs coordinated through the united nations multilateral we have to save the multilateralism of the united nations and give it the chance to do what it's good at through the coordination of the un system we develop our joint programs that bring in different union agencies to government and uh civil society and such program we will have in kameroom and we want everyone to come in on that and help us fully fully funded with no education and we don't that and no lifeline they have very few options and i've said that before um if you don't have an education and you're living in this abnormal environment um and unless we take extraordinary action in response to that abnormal environment they will be at a far higher risk for sex sexual exploitation and violence and early pregnancies and then it's finished no more chance this we can't save them after that and the boys they will do what boys do if they're offered a few pennies to support their families they will join arm groups and terror groups buko haram and they will turn to kidnap these girls so this lost you know the lost girls will become the victims of the lost boys who have become the victim themselves so the vicious circles of victims um and victimization and suffering so the the children should that should be in school and learning will instead start perseping they're persecuted and the victims and the cycle will never never end now i have given you a few example in conclusion on what education cannot wait us we believe that while we see all this suffering and we see the gloom and we see the the the challenges the threats you can make a difference you can it's possible as a matter of fact that's probably one of the biggest reasons we're in this world come and make it better so it's up to us to provide those extraordinary solutions to abnormal problems because we live in a in a in a more privileged part of the world and as a global fund the united nation's global fund for education emergencies we were created precisely um to position reposition education and again i'd like to give the credibility to to the credit for that to the to the u.n. special ember for global education born on brown who conceived of education cannot wait because he wanted less bureaucracy and more accountability towards those disarm and was very keen to see this big part of the multilateral u.n. system so this would not have taken place and then he was supported by u.n. member states u.n. agencies and civil society and here we are today that is becoming a reality but there's so much work to do now shortly after w showed the clear the pandemic what it is that when you do just within two weeks we actually moved and we were just just just a little bit behind the office for the connection humanitarian crisis that moved a bit faster but two weeks is still a very fast time and within 21 days we had mobilized 23 million dollars and then an additional 22.4 million dollars a couple of months later and distributed to eight to five grantees in 32 crisis affected countries over 75 percent of our coven 19 first were dispersed within weeks this is the fastest disbursement of funds to date we like to quote martin not the king on that one the fears a merge of the fears urgency of now it's now it's not tomorrow it's not next year it's now it's right now so that's how we operate and we were able to do so because we used the u.n. multi multilateral international coordination system and we have brilliant partners on the ground agencies and and joes and we reached in total 29.2 million children adolescents 51% were girls including 49% 1.4 million refugees of whom 49% were girls and we also reached 1 million internally displaced with our coven 19 response beyond our coven 19 response we continued our multi-year programming which is what rory referred to as the human attire and development nexus because that is the future we are no longer going to have the isolation of gaps human attire and is there and development there today it's about working together in solidarity in one joint program and that's also part of the u.n. secretary general reform program joint programming and that is another reason we are able to move so fast we create an additional eight programs bringing the total number of 18 multi-year programs in 18 countries where we have brought everyone together under one program and the vibrant roles of responsibilities depending on other value and across these programs girls are one of our top priorities it is our top priority every investment needs to entail 60 girls and it's not just the number it's the curriculum it's the training of female teachers it's also the training of boys in their learning to respect girls and respect women and sure that there's protective mechanisms around the school so that they can't get kidnapped make a short sanitation is there for them so that is one of our top priority and other top priority and we share many priorities with Ireland besides this but one is our strong commitment to a rights-based approach based on international law IHN human rights law and the safe school declaration so that's another one and also to bear in mind all the children and youth that are affected by disability or an other ability and and they need to be given particularly because they are usually the ones usually the ones that are hidden at home I mean we've seen in countries they are chained to walls in their homes so no one can see them and then of course we have other groups that are invisible such as the LGBTQ community how can we support them without exposing them or groups because of different ethnicity or because of a different background or race or religion we need to make sure that human rights without discrimination is part of education cannot wait submission and so what can we do well we have a UN charter that promised all generations to respect human rights and to build a more peaceful and prosperous word we believe that education is the starting point for that that is the way to end poverty, violence, social inequity around the globe and if anyone doubts that then just look at the reverse if a nation is not educated how can we achieve anything of that and we need to increase the spending gap on COVID-19 and education cannot wait that has mobilized 1.8 billion to date in just a few years 1 million in country against our multi-year programs and farce and 800 million in our trust fund we are going to call on world leaders for 1 billion 1 billion we need to scale up and we need to scale up fast we it's all in our head our attitude how we think but it's also in our heart how do we empathize how do we put ourselves in the situation and when there is a feeling of empathy or solidarity understanding that we have responsibility for humanity and the next generation that feeling will automatically trigger action and it will remove fear to speak truth to power and that truth is that every child every girl every adolescent in forgotten crisis in conflict in refuge has an inherent right to a quality education and by supporting that right by financing that right until these countries can rebuild by doing so we are contributing to our shared humanity we can also contribute to a further deterioration of the world so we need to come together and we cannot wait and I would say education cannot wait well humanity cannot wait these children cannot wait the youth cannot wait these countries can no longer wait so let me conclude by thanking you again Irish I8 and IIA for hosting this event and we believe as Ireland has shown such a great commitment again and again always and I followed Ireland many years even before I took on my job in education cannot wait for so many years to try to bring the world to a better place based on international law and to commend you for signing the deal for engagement in fragile states and committing to the OACD doc recommendations on the humanitarian development nexus as Rory mentioned really commendable let's get everyone with us let's get the security council with us let's get the whole EU and member states with us on that and let's get the private sector with us on this and we all together we are going to stand hand in hand with Ireland in this struggle politically and also in delivering real results on the ground and education cannot wait to call us a young fund we might be a young fund but we're a much short fund we're a much short global fund today and we have a proven model through evaluations that this is the new way of working us in the SS reform program that actually deliver the sounds and also with speed and less bureaucracy and largely because we were allowed to be disruptive we were envisaged to be disruptive and I will end here by saying thank you for organizing Stephen thank you for being such a role model example for the rest of the world to fall off and count on education cannot wait to do anything to put your work and your commitment and your value system out there in our shared mission and thank you for having me here today thank you we can make it happen we'll do it together thank you wonderful thank you so much you have me for that passionate delivery and I think you painted a very vivid picture of the scale of the the the need and both for funding but for political action as well so thank you so much for that so maybe I can start off with there's a couple of questions coming in but maybe I can start off just asking about that set the scale of it as you say you know and a massive resources are needed for a holistic response and there have been significant pledges made quite recently from well from from the EU from the US from Ireland and just how far has that gone to address some of those and maybe speak a little bit more to what more do political leaders need to do to really drive the sources of funding that you need and I would like to add just a comment we have in from a member of the audience if you don't mind it's from Dara Moriarty he has given a question in that he got from the audience that any comment on the British government's decision over the summer to cut its development aid budget from 0.7 of GNI to 0.5 so maybe we start off with a bigger picture on the funding pledges that have been made recently and how far that goes and what more is needed and then looking at the the UK government's decision and and your reaction to that please well as I mentioned during the the opening is that so far education cannot wait has mobilized 1.8 billion that includes last week's commitments divided between our trust fund and our in-country program there are two ways to fund education not wait straight into the trust fund or take that that program in-country facilitated by SW fund it directly because you know many many many member states have missions in-country with their own envelopes and others do it from the central level now it's it's been in that sense more than we had expected for this year because there was the GP replenishment and we had economic recession so we took it a little bit low-profile to allow that to take place the GP replenishment and then we would start but I think um what we have done in crisis and the fact that more and more governments are now using their resources for those left-overs behind automatically turn to education cannot wait because the results were very obvious and as a result of the funding raised so far we have provided 4 4.6 children uh and youth with an inclusive holistic continued sustained quality education you go back a few years they didn't have it today they have it and when I speak of holistic is it's from the humanitarian development access they will be able to go to school and actually learn with real learning outcome in the middle of a crisis or refugee situation in addition we have reached 29.5 million children during COVID-19 to prevent their their their disruption of their school and we now have investments in 38 crisis affected countries or refugee hosted countries so this is just a little bit less than four years and I would say and it's not being pretentious it's more to inspire EZW is and I've been in the UN since for just over 30 years around the UN uh is it's the fastest UN initiative I have seen in the UN and I think that's why we have so much support from the Secretary General Gutierrez and the Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohammed and the heads of UN agencies because they look at them and say wow this is incredible how they've been able so this is this is what we have been able for instance during Afghanistan the Taliban came on the 15th of August but we were able to work with our partners in country UNICEF was one of them save the children and other the median refugee council together and reach girls and Taliban areas well before Taliban took over Kabul we've been doing this for years than Taliban areas so that's one reason I'm going to Afghanistan in a few weeks is to reinforce what already has been done the President said so we've been able to we've been able to go into Central Africa Republic we have 12 different militia groups and reach those children because we we differ from other other actors or funds in that we work with governments but we are not bound by them because we exercise humanitarian principles so we go to Yemen there's the fact that the Jewry government doesn't mean that we will only work with the Jewry government we will make our own humanitarian assessment together with UN actors so this is how far we have come um politically one of the UN's fastest moving initiatives education has become globally recognized as lower is sent as a priority uh and the enormous resources mobilized we are going to ask for another billion dollar because the number of children reached when we started education cannot wait to Gordon Brown brought it to the World Humanitarian Summit the estimation was 75 million children and youth without the quality education as a result of covid just speaking about 128 million children and youth and when you look at and at at the the funding we come around with when you look at those the countries you're speaking about 10 11 000 dollars a year for a child's education and you go to the forgotten crisis in Africa and you're trying to provide a quality education with 152 million dollars that's not okay so funding one billion is our next goal so that we will be able to save very soon we have mobilized three billion then five billion then ten billion then 20 billion and with that we hope to achieve the other human rights and the and sustainable development goals and I will not comment on the British government's decisions these are internal decisions and that's not my job but I can say that the UK is education cannot wait leading Donald it's a UK was not only there to fund to establish education cannot wait they came in with the largest contribution and set the new stage for education cannot wait two years ago with over 100 million dollars to education cannot wait no one had ever done that before initially they looked at education cannot wait we put five million two million they came in and broke all ground so they are education cannot number one donor they have chosen to put education as their top priority in girls education Germany followed suit now and came in last week with 50 million euros then the easy came with 25 million euros adding to previous funding that the easy has given us over the years everyone is shifting they're saying no we're just not gonna throw the remnants of all other international aid to educate no we're gonna put education at the center so I think the UK made a pitch for education cannot wait at an early stage and as a result of the European and American America came in with 37 million last week and have previously also both the population movement and refugee and the State Department so I have only positive things to say about my partners great thank you and that's very encouraging to hear that that funding is coming in I have a comment and a question here from Charles Amote a high school teacher from a remote part of Kenya and he's a human rights educator and a coordinator of amnesty clubs Kenya so very much from a human rights background so he first of all thanks you thank you for your for your expression on the education crisis and he he makes a comment that in Kenya the pandemic has pushed many girls to early pregnancies as you said yourself and many many case of sexual violence and also you know boys been pushed out of school and into drug and substance abuse which I suppose is yet another consequence of that so in terms of the those issues that he raises and he wonders what initiatives and support to schools have been given to address those particular issues within within the the response that's given by the organization and by the fund thank you thank you very much well when it comes to Kenya I know we have invested in refugees during COVID-19 and we work with a specific specific allocation to Kenya and we will continue to do so as we are facing the crisis the the the challenge we have with Kenya well it's for good and for bad Kenya would normally not count as one of the W's priority countries because for to qualify as a country for for education cannot wait because we have a very targeted approach I mean you have the global fund for education partnership for education we are targeting our focus is specifically emergency group targeted crisis climate change endemic pandemics but climate change refugees displaced and conflict so we are a crisis and that's why we are inside the United Nations because that gives us the access and the political leverage but we also work in non-governmental organizations teachers school administration so so to make a long answer short we have supported refugees in Kenya because of the virtual the fault by them being refugees but normally the countries that we focus on in Africa are the Cameroons, the Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic because they have multiple crises that that relates to emojis and protracted crisis perfect thank you so much for that and maybe just going back to the climate crisis and its impact in the areas where where you are working and what more can be done to raise awareness of the impact of climate change on education in emergency settings and is there a danger that we're addressing these in a siloed way and and also be interesting to hear your comments on whether or not climate security should also be on the COP agenda and whether we should be just raising awareness of the the intersectionality of the issues it's a great question it's one of my favorite questions because it's about connecting dots you know the great italian painter once once said Liora da Vinci once said no to see the whole thing connect the dots he said something along those lines everything is interrelated and if we have come to a point in in in our evolution we can't look at things as scattered silos everything is interrelated we are one humanity and so is climate change security education it's all interrelated now the the interrelation between climate change security and education is very simple where there is climate change either you have cyclones drought earthquakes or their certification that's a climate change right you will have scarcity of resources when you have scarcity of resources you will have conflict when you have conflict you will have violations of humanitarian law and you will have terror and you will have the war machinery and when you have that you have refugees or in turn are displaced and when you have refugees and returners in displaced they are running and when you run you can't stay in school and when you don't stay in school you cannot come back and build back back better and recover as a matter of fact you may be drawn into that cycle of violence and that altogether create instability threatening national security but most of all human security the moment you threaten human security you bet you're gonna threaten national security that's where it starts give people young people security physical legal security to go to school and learn and rebuild and build a life you will have national security if you don't there will be no national security so that is what the relation is you don't need to make this into a very complicated formula how do we climate change and education belong i just sort of outlined it this happens then this happens then this happens then this happens i think it should be on cop cop 26 i think we need to speak openly and honestly with intellectual on intellectual honestly how everything is interconnected thank you so much yes i mean i think um you you very clearly outline how these things are connected and and the need for a political resolution and and also some practical solutions and and i think as you talked about the work of education kind of ways it is very practical but takes that whole human rights framework into account and that's really important and i think we have time for for one last question if that's okay with you and and maybe it's just to ask you about um just how much innovation you saw emerging in the response to covet because as you said you reached and 29.2 vulnerable girls and boys that's an amazing rapid response and did you see in terms of the proposals that were coming forward because obviously the model had to change of delivery that there was lots of innovations coming at that time um and will these be useful going forward well i yeah i think it's a great question i mean i i i like often to refer to creativity is the creativity of survival and and the first responders are the communities themselves but i i i and and my colleagues will have many more examples of innovations but you have countries like afghanistan there is no electricity whatsoever you know if you fly from or at night from iran across iran and then you cross into afghanistan you know exactly when you cross the border because it goes pitch black why does it go pitch black there's no electricity forget about the wildfire the digital divide is a result of an absolute lack of infrastructure which is a result of an absolute lack of socioeconomic equity so in afghanistan the teachers did what they could they picked up i'm going out of focus they picked up books and walked in the villages from from from house to house to drop off the homework the exams and then they would come at the end of the week to pick it up so that's is it a novelty well it is innovative if you don't have a classroom and you can't go to school they do what you do what you can with what you have where you are in the most of the countries where you have a lack of electricity or you have very scarcity of this and and you don't have computers and all this technology because most of our countries don't using radio using radio using children's clubs or youth clubs where they can come together through radio and making sure they have all social protocol and sanitation in place and quickly training teachers how to deal with covid and social protocol i mean this is creativity for survival i would say if i am to say well we came up with this incredible technological solution i would be lying because you don't have electricity and but we've also seen the use of solar systems and we paid for it in many of the countries where you lack the proper infrastructure but that's also it also reminded to all of us that the digital divide and showed us during covid 19 of the socio-economic divide that persists between the north and the south yes i mean i have been run out of time but i want to thank you so much on behalf of the iiea and on behalf of irish aid i mean i think your your delivery here today i think has inspired us all and you've spoken to great values you've spoken to localization to human rights and i as i said before such practical solutions for the most vulnerable and and you've painted a very vivid picture for us so thank you so much we've greatly enjoyed it and we'll continue to support you and yes the very best to lock without funding gap and and with the really important work so thank you thank you for laura thank you irish aid thank you iiea and all of you who listen to thank it's been my pleasure and privilege