About Education Cannot Wait

Canada continues to fight poverty both at home and abroad. Making the world a better place means ensuring that girls enjoy a strong start in life. This includes investing in education in crisis and emergency situations, where empowering girls and preparing them for the future is essential.

Education Cannot Wait (ECW), hosted by UNICEF, is an innovative new global fund for education in crisis and emergency situations helping to transform how funding is invested to support education and vulnerable youth.

On December 2, 2018, Canada pledged $50 million, over three years, to ECW as part of its Charlevoix G7 Summit commitment of $400 million to improve access and educational outcomes for women and girls in fragile and conflict-affected states. ECW is the only global fund designed to deliver rapid, flexible support to address gaps in financing, capacity and coordination to ensure that girls and boys in crisis situations have access to quality education.

It is well known that women and girls face barriers to education, especially in crisis and emergency situations. Tackling these barriers and ensuring access to quality learning is a priority for children and families affected by conflicts, natural disasters and displacement. ECW brings together public and private partners to work together to mobilize funding required to deploy immediate and sustainable programs tailor-made to the educational needs of children in crisis situations.

Learn more about Education Cannot Wait, or follow it on Twitter @EduCannotWait

Quick facts

• Canada is the second-largest donor to ECW and has committed $70 million since 2016.
• ECW supports activities designed to meet education needs for crisis-affected children and youth aged three to 18 years old.
• To date, ECW has mobilized approximately $420 million (US$319 million) from 13 donors.
• Since ECW became operational in 2016, the fund has invested $177 million in 19 crisis-affected countries.
• ECW investments have supported quality education for more than 800,000 children and youth—of whom 364,000 are girls—among the most vulnerable and hardest to reach.
• ECW currently supports programs in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Gaza, Indonesia, Lebanon, Madagascar, Nepal, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Somalia, Syria, Uganda, Ukraine and Yemen.