News

The United Nations drummed up more than $1.2 billion in emergency pledges Monday for helping 11 million Afghans facing an escalating humanitarian crisis in their homeland and millions more elsewhere in the region as the U.N. human rights chief voiced concerns about the Taliban’s first steps in establishing power in the beleaguered and impoverished country.

The international community pledged more than $1 billion in emergency funding as Afghans already unsure of where their next meal will come from risk running out of food just as winter sets in.

Malala Yousafzai's speech to the UN Security Council regarding the situation in Afghanistan. 

Explosive weapons were used to attack about 40 schools in Afghanistan during the first six months of 2021, as Taliban forces took over key territories, the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA) said in a report released today.   Most of the 185 students and teachers killed or wounded in these attacks were girls and women.

"Education,” wrote Nelson Mandela, “is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.” One wonders what he would have made of the response to the education crisis triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic. A crisis threatening to derail social and economic progress, trapping millions of children in poverty.

The Refugee Olympic team has brought the refugee crisis back into the spotlight and rightly so. According to Amnesty International, there are currently 26 million refugees globally – 7.1 million of who are school-aged children. The needs of refugee children can be incredibly complex as a result of their experiences in crises and conflict-affected countries.

2021 was to be the year in which the UK took leadership of global education. So it’s devastating that, instead of demonstrating its commitment to education during this moment in the spotlight, the UK government has chosen to cut education spending by more than 40 percent, compared with overall aid cuts of around 25 percent.

They escaped traumatic circumstances in Myanmar and now live in harsh conditions. But refugees are creating murals drawn from their flourishing cultural traditions, reborn in Bangladesh camp

As President, Joe Biden has pledged to pursue a foreign policy based on moral values and cooperation, an approach that prioritizes decency and the protection of human rights. This pledge will be immediately tested by the ongoing repercussions of one of the worst mass atrocities in recent history, the genocide committed by the state of Myanmar against the Rohingya. But there is a way forward.

The Geneva Global Hub for Education in Emergencies was officially launched on 25 January 2021. During the 2019 Global Refugee Forum held in Geneva, Switzerland pledged to position International Geneva as a global centre for education in emergencies. Over 127 million children in humanitarian crises and conflict regions cannot go to school.