Global Poverty Project led on securing an education commitment from Denmark that is set to affect 480,000 kids through the Global Partnership for Education.  

WHAT'S THE ISSUE?

58 million children worldwide do not receive a basic primary education and girls are particularly disadvantaged. Yet, education is a key aspect of enabling people to shift out of poverty. The more someone receives a quality education, the more employment opportunities they have available to them, the healthier their families are likely to be, and girls are more likely to marry and have children later. With fewer, more safely conceived children, more and greater opportunities become available for the next generation. 171 million people could be pulled out of poverty just by ensuring all children left school with basic reading skills.

Global Partnership for Education (GPE) supports developing countries' efforts to educate children from early primary school through secondary school. Previous efforts have helped 22.5 million children into school, including 11.7 million girls.

HOW DID GLOBAL CITIZENS RESPOND?

So far, global citizens have taken over 8,600 actions calling on world leaders to support GPE. Most of these actions were signing our petition, which we have shared at more than 160 meetings and correspondences with world leaders.

WHAT'S THE IMPACT?

From the Global Citizen 2015 Earth Day stage on the National Mall in Washington, DC, Denmark’s, Minister for Trade and Development, Mogens Jensen announced a commitment of 400 million Danish Krone to GPE. This commitment is set to affect the lives of 480,000 children. He said “The financing gap to reach new education targets is $22 billion a year. We can afford that.”

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

Global Poverty Project will continue working with partners and governments around the world to ensure the GPE’s estimated $22 billion USD shortfall is met. We will produce Global Citizen content pieces and op-eds at timely moments so that world leaders understand there’s wide support for meeting GPE’s budget that is, when fulfilled, is set to have 29 million more children into school.