Sustainable Development Goal 4, concerned with ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all, is in danger of not being met – and philanthropy should be working harder to help transform education globally.

That is the message of 30 funders and foundations who have signed a statement from the International Education Funders Group, prepared in collaboration with the OECD Development Centre and netFWD. The statement is being circulated and will be taken to the Transforming Education Summit – the largest gathering on education event, which will take place in New York City during the UN General Assembly.

Signatories of the statement so far include the Gates Foundation, Hilton Foundation, Aga Khan Foundation, Sawiris Foundation for Social Development, Queen Rania Foundation, and Fondation Botnar.

The statement calls on philanthropy to leverage its influence on transforming global education through:

• encourage innovation,
• support a culture of evidence,
• use a range of modalities to enable local actors to work on solutions to their own defined problems,
• and offer strategic support behind government priorities.

According to IEFG, the world was already facing a learning crisis. Before Covid, 57 per cent of children in low- and middle-income countries could not read or understand a simple text by age ten. That figure is now a staggering 70 per cent.

‘Equipping all children with the skills, knowledge and values that they will need to thrive as citizens in society is a major challenge on the road to 2030, given the rapid pace of technological change and the uncertainty and volatility of the future’, IEFG said, in a statement on its website.

To learn more about the Transforming Education Summit or the statement for philanthropy, visit iefg.org.