The United Nations (UN) Transforming Education Summit has launched seven new Global Initiatives to accelerate countries’ efforts to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 on inclusive and equitable quality education.
During the Summit, which took place on 16–19 September in New York, 130 countries committed to prioritising education measures in their countries’ policy and legislation. These included measures to address learning loss, support the well-being of learners and teachers, and support economically vulnerable communities, among others.
Seven new Global Initiatives launched at the Summit will help countries to focus on transforming education. They aim to support countries to improve their education systems, making them more inclusive and resilient to future challenges. The initiatives include ensuring learners are prepared for a greener future, providing digital solutions for every learner, advancing gender equality and transforming education financing. They also examine foundational learning, ensuring continuity of inclusive education for learners affected by crises, and how to empower young people to become effective leaders and shape their own education systems.
In addition, the SDG 4 High-level Steering Committee is calling on countries to ensure accountability for working towards these initiatives. It requests that countries commit to monitoring processes, by agreeing indicators and national targets for 2025 and 2030. The Steering Committee will monitor progress towards these targets annually.
The UN website contains more information on the Summit and the Steering Committee’s monitoring.
Agency work underpins efforts to transform education and as such relates to all seven of the Global Initiatives. Agency activities that could specifically inform the Global Initiatives include Inclusive Digital Education, Financing Policies for Inclusive Education Systems (FPIES), Building Resilience through Inclusive Education Systems (BRIES) and Voices into Action.