ECW Director requests UN member states for urgent funding for education in Afghanistan

The United Nations member states, donors, and humanitarian organisations must remain engaged and act together to support children, teachers, educators, and the Afghan people, said Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait - the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted. She also called for urgent funding for the education sector in the war-torn nation. Yasmine Sherif, who recently came back from the first-ever all-women United Nations mission to Afghanistan since the Taliban took power, stated that groups working in the education sector require nearly $1 billion over a three-year time period. 

Sherif went on to say that in Afghanistan, approximately 4.2 million children were not registered in school even before the present humanitarian catastrophe. She also stated that 10 million females were yet to start taking education in schools.  

Although most of the schools in Afghanistan were halted from 2020 to 2021 because of the COVID-19 outbreak, most elementary co-education schools reopened when the Taliban took control in August. She further noted that in terms of secondary education, girls' education has been reinstated in several areas.  

ECW Director Yasmine Sherif urges for help in the Education sector in Afghanistan

Quoting the Director of ECW, the Xinhua website reported, “UN member states, donors and humanitarian organizations, as well as crisis-sensitive development organizations, must remain engaged and act together now to support children, teachers, educators and the Afghan people, with education at the center of the response, because education is their future and the future of the country.” 

ECW Director Yasmine Sherif further stressed that paying salaries to teachers is an important factor. The ECW has funded 45 million dollars till now for aiding Afghanistan's education for girls, boys, and adolescents, according to the agency. 

According to a report published on the website 'Education Cannot Wait', to discuss the significance of expanding access to excellent education for all children, especially teenage girls, across the nation, Sherif visited the existing authorities in Kabul during her three-day tour in Afghanistan.  

Sherif has even toured a girls' school in Kabul and talked with a variety of education associates, which comprises the UN-SRSG, United Nations agencies, international and national civil society organisations, and representatives of the education in the emergency working group, to assess the conditions of the nation and to recognise specific opportunity to broaden ECW emergency education investments. 

Since the year 2018, ECW has been assisting the provision of educational programs for Afghanistan's most underprivileged girls and boys with direct implementation through UN agencies and civil society groups. As per the 2020 Annual Report of ECW, girls make up 58% of the recipients of ECW-funded initiatives, which are conducted in some of Afghanistan's most difficult-to-reach regions, including Herat, Kunduz, Kandahar, and Uruzgan. 

According to the report, 'Learn Afghanistan' created by NGO launched a scheme this month with 100 pupils registered. The school's main concentration is on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. 

(Image: Twitter/ @YasmineSherif1/ AP)