Action: 19. Time: 5 minutes. Level of difficulty: Easy. For the results of last week’s action, click here.
Right now, we have the opportunity to make a real impact on quality education for the world’s poorest children, but we need your help. The Global Partnership for Education, an organization that helps fund effective educational programs in developing countries, is up for a replenishment next week in Copenhagen.
From now until then, we need to push the US government hard to support this important organization, because we know they have the capacity to do amazing things. Between 2002 and 2009, the Partnership’s developing country partners sent 19 million more kids to school and increased primary school completion to 68 percent. And if donors fully fund the Global Partnership for the next three years, they could help send 25 million more children to primary school.
Using the form below, please write a message to USAID Administrator Raj Shah. Tell him, along with your personal message, that the US should go to Copenhagen with a pledge of $375 million over the next three years for the Global Partnership for Education.
Mali is not the first country that comes up when people describe educational progress sub-Saharan Africa. Ranked as one of the top 25 poorest nations on earth, improvements do not come easily. Yet despite financial issues, Mali has made promising strides in education in the last 10 years. The government of Mali is working with partners to improve the quality of basic and secondary education by training teachers, providing textbooks and other learning materials, installing dedicated reading areas inside classrooms, and transferring direct funds to school to acquire materials locally.
Next week, the Global Partnership for Education will host its first-ever replenishment conference. The event will bring together donors and developing country partners to make commitments for the next three years. This is a decisive moment for the international community; robust support for education is crucial in the lead-up to the 2015 Millennium Development Goal deadline.
A snapshot of the GPE’s infographic. Download the graphic here.
A teacher at the Kidoti Primary School in Tanzania.
We’ve proclaimed a “day” to celebrate everything from ice cream to talking like a pirate, but last Wednesday, the world celebrated a group of people who have touched every one of our lives: teachers.
At ONE, you will often hear the jargon “siloed,” “cross-cutting” and “lens” when referring to our issues affecting global poverty. In reality, all the issues are cross-cutting and work hand-in-hand toward worldwide development. One lens that is important to ONE and gaining the attention of the international community is gender and its role in development objectives. So, let’s put on our gender glasses and take a look at what is happening around this topic.
Please give a warm welcome to Hallie Stevens, ONE’s new policy intern based in Washington, D.C. This is her first blog post, and we are excited to have her on board!
Rwandan schoolgirls.
Rwanda’s transformed education system is one of the greatest success stories to come out of Africa in the last decade. Yet oftentimes, Rwanda is only remembered for its genocide, and rarely for the incredible progress and developments that it has made since then. Rwanda today has completely rebuilt its educational system so that every child in Rwanda has the chance at primary education.
After the death of 80 percent of Rwanda’s intellectuals in the genocide, Rwanda was faced with rebuilding and enhancing their educational system. Rwanda initially implemented a six-year plan to achieve universal primary education (UPE), but because of rapid progress in the first few years, they expanded it into a nine-year plan called the Nine-Year Basic Education Program. This education sector plan was approved by the Education for All-Fast Track Initiative (EFA FTI), known today as the Global Partnership for Education (GPE). The Global Partnership is a multilateral organization that invests in developing countries with promising education sector plans. Thanks to government prioritization, with support from the Global Partnership, today 97 percent of Rwandan children enter primary school.
Launched in 2002 by the World Bank and other donors, the Education for All – Fast Track Initiative (FTI) was the first-ever global compact on education. Today, FTI changed its name to the Global Partnership for Education, providing a clear vision of the Partnership’s structure.
The rebranding follows significant reforms (to the fund, the secretariat, accountability measures and results framework) that will make the Partnership more effective than ever. It’s completely appropriate that “partnership” is in the name –- it’s a unique organization that coordinates bilateral and multilateral funding for education, and works with donors and developing countries.
ONE is campaigning to ensure that the Congressional budget does not cut foreign assistance programs like Feed the Future that help people break the cycle of poverty and hunger.
The Horn of Africa is experiencing its worst drought in 60 years. More than 11 million people, mostly nomadic pastoralists and farmers in south-central Somalia, north-eastern Kenya, and south-eastern Ethiopia, are severely lacking access to food.
2011 marks 30 years since the first cases of AIDS were documented. Take a closer look at the specific, achievable goals we must hit by 2015 to make this year the beginning of the end of AIDS.
As aid agencies warn more than 9 million people could be affected by a food crisis in East Africa, world leaders are failing to keep their 2009 promises to tackle the causes of chronic hunger and support farmers in the world's poorest countries.
