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To empower the world’s young people to lead the transition to a greener, fairer, and more equitable planet, there is indeed an urgent need for global leaders to invest better and to invest more. 

The European Union (EU) is committed to investing both more and better in education worldwide. At the start of my mandate, I committed to increasing education financing from 7% to at least 10% of the international partnerships portfolio. 

EU’s Global Gateway strategy brings new opportunities to mobilize funding for education, for example, through the . In addition, we work with partner countries closely to enhance domestic resource mobilization capacity and increase the fiscal space for education financing. 

As part of the SDG4 High-Level Steering Committee, the EU was one of the driving forces to establish a periodic inter-ministerial dialogue between Ministers of Finance and Ministers of Education, as a platform to discuss issues around strategic financing, resource mobilization, and prioritization of education within Government portfolios.

It is key to remember that education is an investment – not an expense – to be supported by a whole-of-government and cross-sectoral approach.

The priorities of the Transforming Education Summit – equity, skills for life and work, and quality teaching – are also priorities of the Global Gateway education investments. The investments support all levels of education, including vocational education and training (VET) and higher education and research systems.

Importantly, Global Gateway is implemented in a Team Europe approach. This means mobilizing all EU institutions, EU Member States, their Public Development Banks, Development Finance Institutions and implementing organizations, the European Investment Bank (EIB), the private sector and civil society.

By pooling resources and expertise, we are making our actions more coordinated, impactful and transformative. In Africa alone, we are currently introducing with an education component in over 20 countries.

The on 11 April will showcase the results achieved through our investments. We will launch new concrete regional and bilateral initiatives, bring stakeholders together to share best practices and testimonials, and mobilize high-level partners to ensure education remains a top priority of the international agenda.

With Global Gateway, we aim to help fill the severe shortage in qualified teachers. For example, the EU and its Member States represent 53% of all donor contributions to the Global Partnership for Education (GPE). In 2022, 9 in 10 GPE implementation grants included support for teachers, trainings and teaching materials; and 675 000 teachers were trained. 

In Africa, the EU’s truly transformative €100 million brings complementary support to our bilateral investments, targeting teacher shortages, qualifications, professional development needs, working conditions and status.