Finland boosts its support for education in developing countries

Finland strengthens its support for education in developing countries as a donor of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE).

Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Ville Skinnari at the ‘Virtual Educa Goes Digital’ event held on Friday said Finland will allocate EUR 25 million to the GPE’s next replenishment for 2021-2025, said the foreign ministry in a press release. Educa is a full-cycle educational solution. It supports learning stories, planning, supporting documentation, assessments, and teachers’ professional development.

The GPE is the largest global fund dedicated to support education systems in developing countries. It gives grants for the development of the education sector in lower-income and fragile countries. The majority of the grants are given to countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Before this, Finland in 2013-2016 supported the fund with a total of six million euro.

At the end of 2020, Finland allocated two million euro to the GPE’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic to be used for supporting continuity of learning in developing countries in the emergency caused by the pandemic. The support focuses on ensuring the continuity of learning and returning to school, especially for girls and vulnerable children.

“Given the international interest that our good expertise and education system attract, Finland can play a role in advancing the sustainable development goal of the UN 2030 Agenda on quality education in different parts of the world. Finland wants to work towards the common goal of providing quality education for the most vulnerable children and youth,” Skinnari told Educa.

Finland considers that it is particularly important to support access to education for girls and children with disabilities and to develop teacher training.

The GPE aims to raise USD five billion in development finance during the next five years.

The funding will be used to strengthen education systems comprehensively, to improve the quality of teaching, and to promote the education of girls and the most marginalised children in more than 70 developing countries.