After noticing the lack of local actors, organisations and leaders from the main discussion at the UNGA pre-summit in Paris earlier this year, here at Street Child we decided we had to do something about it. We reached out to leaders and changemakers from our local partners, sent out invites to high profile personnel in the sector and booked our flights to New York to participate at the UNGA “Transforming Education “summit, chasing our goal to elevate local voices in the spaces that matter most.

New York was buzzing with diplomats, activists, celebrities and leaders from the humanitarian space. High profile guests such as Malala Yousafzai and UNICEF Goodwill ambassador Vanessa Nakate delivered key notes and inspiring speeches to rooms full of those with the potential and money to instigate change.

Among the throng, thanks to the support from Shearman & Sterling and LionTree, Street Child were proud to have hosted two events.

The first event, a panel discussion, brought together Directors of three outstanding child-centred national NGOs; Mohammed Sabo of Nigeria’s Almajiri Child Rights Initiative (ACRI), Palwasha Hassan of the Afghan Women’s Educational Centre (AWEC) and Christian Tanyi of LUKMEF in Cameroon. All these partners are operating in countries facing some of the world’s most severe rates out of school children.

We wanted to ensure local leaders were not just present but that their voices were heard. We invited attendees from civil society, ministers of education and leaders of some of the world’s largest education clusters to witness our panel on the importance of localisation. The panel’s discussion triggered inspiring conversations and a renewed wave of enthusiasm for the clear need to fund and push local level action. However, despite the general gusto of the attendees, it was clear the organisations and individuals who can finance these much-needed changes were not part of the discussion.

This theme was apparent during the summit in general.

There were a lot of knowledgeable and passionate people in the room looking to bridge the gap between children and education, but there were limited private sector actors and institutional donors present, the financiers were absent from the conversation. Whether by design or accident, it was noticeable.  Jeffrey Sachs, the renowned economist, put it succinctly on the second day of the summit during his keynote speech. “$50 bn USD would close the education gap. That’s one half of one tenth of the world output.” This highlights the key issue is the lack of funding for the education sector and without crucial financial backers in the room, the main question remains: will the ‘Transforming Education Summit’ actually lead to meaningful changes?  

The decision to invest in education is clear. It’s like a farmer who harvests his field every year and after the fifth year is surprised to find an empty plot of land. If you don’t sow back into the land, then your harvest will end. This is similar to the education crisis. If we do not invest in the next generation, create opportunities for them and provide them with the skillset to access these opportunities, then children won’t acquire the foundational skills they need for the future.

Whilst education actors have designed and piloted the necessary interventions that are needed to change the crisis there is an evident reliance on national governments to fund their own intervention. But for the poorest countries whose economic development has been hindered by a myriad of factors, the ability to implement these interventions is not there. This is compounded by high interest rates on debt repayment and low tax collection rates.

It is therefore clear that whilst national Governments have a key role to play, businesses are part of the world too and without their support we will not be able to address the education crisis. There is an important point to be made that those investing their money into the education crisis must be led by those on the ground on where it can be spent most effectively. As Christian Tanyi, director at LUKMEF, said “there is not one size fits all in what we do. There is a need to contextualize the use of methods”.

Allowing investors to restrict their millions of pounds of investment into projects which propagate the very systems which have allowed this education crisis to occur will not ensure sustainable change. Funding local actors, groups and communities is key. To shift the power balance, we not only need to bring the voices to the table but ensure they have the means with which to action the solutions. As Christian Tanyi said “How can you work for me without me? How can you understand my problems better than me?”.

We can change the world and give children the future they deserve. The passion for change was palpable at the UNGA Transforming Education summit but it is how we harness this momentum that matters. The money to do it is there, lets mobilise this change together.