Education is the most powerful investment in our future, key to building prosperity – jobs and growth – and to empowering individuals. Or as Nelson Mandela put it, the greatest weapon we can use for change.

The European Union (EU) is the leading investor in education worldwide. We are committed to putting the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 back on track by building on the 2022 Transforming Education Summit.

Education, in a life-long learning approach, is a key soft infrastructure pillar of the European Union’s €300 billion Global Gateway investment strategy. Guided by the key principles of equity and inclusion, the Global Gateway education investments aim above all to ensure quality education and skills training for all. In particular in basic education and with a focus on girls. Of the €3 billion education programmes funded from the EU international partnerships budget since 2021, 92% target gender equality, significantly increasing investments to enhance girls’ education and skills.

Teachers are the backbone of education systems and the key to good learning outcomes. Global Gateway investments aim to fill the severe shortage of 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 Regional Teachers’ Initiative brings complementary support, targeting teacher shortages, qualifications, professional development needs, working conditions and status.

Global Gateway education investments also boost vocational education and training (VET) and higher education and research systems, supporting countries in transitioning to an innovation-led, knowledge-based economy, achieving a fair green and digital transition, and proposing relevant skills for young people to take up and create jobs. For example, in Africa, in line with the priorities of each country, projects under the Youth Mobility for Africa flagship support demand-driven, responsive and transformative vocational education and training and higher education across the Global Gateway pillars – digital, climate and energy, transport, health, and education and research.

All in all, the EU institutions and member states provide more than 50% of all official development aid to education worldwide. Although globally aid flows allocated to education have decreased, the European Commission alone has increased its international partnerships budget allocation to education to at least 10%. We cannot put SDG4 back on track alone, but we are working hard to do our part and rally others to follow.

The SDG4 Global Cooperation Mechanism, with the SDG4 High-Level Steering Committee (HLSC) as its apex body, is the global multi-stakeholder consultation and coordination mechanism for education, working to accelerate progress towards achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda for education. The EU is one of the HLSC’s leading members to take forward the global education finance agenda.

The EU is looking forward to convening its partners, including the broad education community, to give an additional boost to progress towards SDG4 ahead of the UN Summit of the Future in September 2024. We invite all our partners to work with us to achieve quality education and skills training for all, and to attend the Global Gateway High-Level Event on Education, co-hosted by the European Commission and the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the EU, on 11 April 2024 in Brussels.