Former British prime minister and chancellor of the exchequer Gordon Brown is the UN’s special envoy for global education. He also serves as chair of the International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity and the High-Level Steering Group for Education Cannot Wait. sated that the ban has upset countries with a large Muslim population, including Qatar and other Gulf Cooperation Council members. The majority of Muslims outside of Afghanistan are in favour of traditional Islamic teaching that promotes girls’ education. The first word of the Koran is “Iqra,” which means to read, and declares that education is required of all Muslims. Additionally, Saudi Arabia has a greater female enrollment rate than Mexico, China, Brazil, and India, with 50% of women of college age enrolling there. From barely 100,000, more Afghan females are now enrolled in school.
Since 2017, The UN’s Education Cannot Wait for the fund, whose director is Yasmine Sherif, has contributed more than $58 million to Afghan education. Now, a new multi-year programme will be implemented to broaden both boys’ and girls’ access to community-based education. Since 2017, the UN’s Education Cannot Wait fund, which I oversee, has contributed more than $58 million to education in Afghanistan, first by providing emergency aid to children who were forced to flee their homes and, more recently (up until last year), by launching a multiyear resilience programme.
