Education is in crisis around the world. Since 1990 huge progress has been made to get millions more children into school, but in recent years this has stalled. If we go on with business as usual there will actually be more children out of school in 2015 than there are today.
RESULTS is today at the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) replenishment event in Copenhagen. This is the best opportunity we have had for years to reinvigorate our efforts to make sure all children can go to school and get a quality education that teaches them the skills they need to succeed in life. Donor Governments, Developing Nation Governments, civil society and the private sector are all here (along with some very cute Danish children and a yurt!) to make pledges towards this goal. So will we get the leadership that we need?
It’s early in the day and I will be blogging throughout as news comes out, but so far things look positive. Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, who couldn’t be here himself (he’s just had heart surgery so we will forgive him!) delivered a fantastic opening message. He challenged everyone present to make sure we become the first generation ever to ensure all children have access to education. He is leading by example: Australia has put education absolutely at the heart of its aid programme, and there are big hopes for the Australian pledge which is due to be announced very shortly. Continue reading
Yesterday major donors from the public and private sector came together to make a historic pledge to immunise more than 250 million of the world’s poorest children and prevent more than 4 million premature deaths. At the 
up their existing vaccination programmes and to also roll out new vaccines against Rotavirus –which causes diarrhoea – and Pneumococcus – which causes pneumonia. However, in an overwhelming display of generosity, the combined donors pledged a total of $4.3Bn, exceeding GAVI’s target by a cool $600 million. The exceeding of the target means GAVI will be able to reach more children more quickly than they had planned. The new pledges bring GAVI’s total available resources for the period 2011 to 2015 to $ 7.6 billion.
