President Akufo-Addo has called on Member States of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) to ensure that education remains a priority in the common development agenda of countries.

Addressing the 215^th Meeting of the Executive Board of UNESCO, on Monday, 10^th October 2022, in Paris, France, the President noted that the world does not have the luxury to pick and choose which crises it wants to fix.

As the recently appointed Domestic Financing supporter of the Global Partnership for Education, President Akufo-Addo sought the co-operation and support of UNESCO “to work towards developing sustainable home-grown financial solutions, so we can develop the educational system for the future we want in our various countries”.

“At this moment, we cannot pick and choose between funding guns and education. We cannot pick and choose between the interests of the present generation and the future of our girls and boys. We cannot choose geopolitical concerns over preserving our cherished cultural heritages, lest we perish universally.”
President Akufo-Addo

President Akufo-Addo stated that despite global instability, education has become one of many competing priorities of domestic budgets, with development aid to the education sector also seriously under pressure. He explained that countries reduced their spending on education after the onset of the COVID-19 and, at the same time, direct aid to education by bilateral donors fell by some $359 million.

This, the President noted is not “compatible with the objectives of the Addis Ababa Action Agenda” for financing sustainable development and the goals of the SDGs.

“We are further informed that prospects for reaching funding target, through voluntary contributions, are uncertain as several long-term donors have already reduced significantly their voluntary contributions to UNESCO due to a change in development cooperation priorities, thereby significantly impacting our planned programme implementation.”
President Akufo-Addo

President commends UNESCO on role in education

Regardless of these challenges, President Akufo-Addo commended UNESCO for the lead role it played in ensuring the success of the Transforming Education Summit, held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September this year.

President Akufo-Addo stated that the Transforming Education Summit, and, indeed, the pre-summit held in Paris, have been extremely successful in getting the world to reflect deeply on the trajectory of educational systems, and how to addresses the challenges of our time.

Touching on Global Priority Africa Programme, which has been adopted by the UNESCO General Conference at its 41^st session, President Akufo-Addo expressed optimism that UNESCO has made Africa a Global Priority, and was delighted to see UNESCO’s flagship programmes as being relevant to achieving the objectives of the Africa Union’s Agenda 2063, being ‘The Africa We Want’.

The President also urged UNESCO’s Executive Board to help win the fight against Climate Change, especially as the planet is heading towards a dangerous tipping point as a result of climate change. He commended UNESCO for the effort to strengthen the ‘Man and Biosphere Programme’, whose goal is to help protect nature and biodiversity loss globally, through the Biosphere Reserve Concept.

“I urge UNESCO Member States to strengthen measures, at their respective national levels, that recognise formally the contribution of Biosphere Reserves, and designate more biosphere reserves and geoparks as a sure way for solving the climate crisis.”
President Akufo-Addo