Historic first-ever International Finance Facility for Education (IFFEd) launched at UN Transforming Education Summit
17 Sept 2022/NEW YORK – Today at the United Nations Transforming Education Summit, world leaders backed the establishment of the first-ever innovative guarantee fund specifically designed to invest in the education of the world’s poorest children and youth – the International Finance Facility for Education (IFFEd).
IFFEd will directly address the devastating global education crisis and learning inequalities that have been exacerbated by the deadly combination of COVID-19, climate change, and conflicts.
It targets the urgent needs of lower-middle-income countries (LMICs) which are home to more than half of the world’s children and youth and where 3 out of 4 young people leave school without the basic skills to thrive.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said, “The International Finance Facility for Education is aimed at getting financing to lower-middle-income countries – home to half the world’s children and youth – and to the majority of the world’s displaced and refugee children. In time, we expect it to grow into a $10 billion facility to educate tomorrow’s generation of young people. I congratulate Special Envoy Gordon Brown and all the countries and institutions involved in getting this facility off the ground. And I urge all international donors and philanthropic organizations to back it.”
Donor governments and multilateral development banks have come together to launch IFFEd and provide an initial $2 billion in additional affordable funding for education programs to be disbursed starting in 2023. IFFEd could unlock an extra $10 billion of additional financing for education and skills by 2030.
The ground-breaking new facility uses a mix of sovereign guarantees and donor grants, to provide affordable education financing. In the current resource-constrained environment, IFFEd is a gamechanger for both donors and LMICs, as it multiplies donor dollars seven times as compared to traditional aid.