The paper entitled "Can countries afford their national SDG4 benchmarks?" by the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report, UNESCO was written to input into a closed event on 13 April at the World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings bringing together ministers of education and finance. It highlights the need to mobilize additional resources, as well as possible strategies to increase the effectiveness of funding.

Some of the report's key findings include:

Without extra funding, countries will fail to meet their 2030 national education targets.

·      The largest financing gap is in sub-Saharan Africa: $70 billion per year. The region has the furthest distance to travel with 20% of primary school age children and almost 60% of upper secondary school age youth not in school.

·      Around a third of the gap (28%) could be filled if donors fulfilled their aid commitments and prioritized basic education in the poorest countries.

·      The costs include the need to triple the number of pre-primary teachers in low-income countries and double them in lower-middle income countries by 2030; The number of primary school teachers needs to increase by nearly 50% in low-income countries.

·      While the full impact of COVID-19 pandemic disruptions remain unknown, the costs also include making up for massive learning losses that exacerbated the pre-existing learning crisis. Only half of children and adolescents are now prepared for the future having completed their education and with minimum proficiency in reading.

·      The paper calls for urgent review of education financing. Yet two-thirds of low- and lower-middle-income countries cut their public education spending in the first year following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the sector will need an injection of funds if countries are to meet their targets.