Education Cannot Wait: Team Europe pledges €313 million to better education for children in crisis

On 16 February, the European Commission and EU Member States, as Team Europe, pledged to invest €313 million in ‘Education Cannot Wait’, the United Nations global fund that helps reach vulnerable crisis-affected children with immediate and longer-term education support. 

The ‘Education Cannot Wait‘ (ECW) is active in 31 countries, including the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine, and has already supported 6.9 million children and young people.

The European Union and ‘Education Cannot Wait’ both promote access to high-quality education for the children most left behind, and seek to make education investments more effective.

The €313 million investment is the EU’s biggest contribution to the Fund. This funding through ‘Education Cannot Wait’ complements other EU support to promote quality education for children and young people in emergencies and protracted crises, and to increase the resilience of education systems in partner countries. EU education investments in fragile countries during the period 2021–2027 will reach €3.2 billion. 

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Press release