On Tuesday 2 March, we held our monthly conference call and were delighted to be joined by guest speaker Anna Darling, Policy and Advocacy Advisor at Plan International UK. As this month’s action is ‘Fund Global Education!’, the call was focused on education and the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), but there was also a crossover with the ongoing campaign to Oppose the aid cuts!
Aaron Oxley, Exective Director of RESULTS UK, began by giving updates on the proposed cuts to UK aid; how these cuts will have a negative impact, where the Government’s decision is at and why involvement by campaigners is important. In the roundup of grassroots campaigning, we heard about the amazing actions already happening to oppose the aid cuts, before seeing some of the findings from our recent grassroots survey. We then turned to the focus of the call – global education.
Anna Darling spoke of the importance of education, the impact of the GPE and why the UK should make a pledge to the fund. She highlighted that there was already a global learning crisis before the pandemic, but the COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated this and there’s a high risk that millions of children will not return to school. As always, the grassroots network had some excellent questions which sparked discussions about UK aid funding more generally, the Government’s commitment to disability inclusive education and why GPE should be funded.
If you felt inspired to support the ask for the UK to pledge £600 million to GPE over the next five years, take action now!
For those who missed it, here is the recording:
*Correction from the recording: RESULTS UK has been working on the Youth Leaders for Health programme since 2019 (not 2009)
Links mentioned in the call:
February’s action materials: Oppose the aid cuts!
Edinburgh instagram post on UK aid
London’s blog ‘Fighting to save UK aid’