Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the UN's global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, has announced a new allocation to support education in emergencies response to the Ukraine refugee crisis in Moldova, on Thursday, April 14.
According to an IANS report, ECW has announced a new allocation of $1.5 million, expanding on the Ukraine First Emergency Response grant of $5 million which was announced in March.
ECW’s total Ukraine crisis education response now stands at $6.5 million. In partnership with the government of Moldova, the new grant will be delivered to ensure that refugee children and youngsters can access safe and protective learning opportunities.
The development of the grant will be facilitated through the coordination mechanism which has been established for the education response. The investments will benefit children in host communities.
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) announced an additional $18 million contribution to the ECW global trust fund. The contribution was made to further support ECW education responses in crisis-impacted countries across the world.
Based on the contribution, the USA is said to be the third-largest donor to ECW after Germany and the UK.
To help with the vast humanitarian crisis unfolding across the region, ECW has called on donors and strategic partners to urgently provide additional funding. For the emergency education response in Ukraine, a funding gap of $30 million is estimated.
According to the reports, since February, approximately 40,000 people have crossed the Ukraine border into Moldova, fleeing from the escalation of the conflict. Majority of them continued their journeys towards other neighbouring countries and Western Europe. Today, Moldova hosts about 1,00,000 refugees. This number also includes 50,000 refugee girls and boys, of whom, only 1,800 are currently enrolled in school.
"Refugee children from Ukraine have fled a brutal war and have arrived dispossessed and traumatised in Moldova. They are very vulnerable and need immediate support. Public schools are open to refugee children, however, the capacity is over-stretched and there is a need for urgent mental health and psycho-social services, sanitation, and teachers to respond to the influx of pre-school and school-aged refugee children," said Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait, as stated in a report by IANS.
"With a coordinated and joint response in place in Moldova, we can act with speed and therefore, we act now. As a leading donor to Education Cannot Wait, the UK is committed to protecting the right of all children to education, including those affected by the crisis. We stand ready to support a coordinated education response for refugee children from Ukraine. Education must be prioritised as an integral part of the ongoing humanitarian response in Ukraine," said Alicia Herbert, Director of Education, Gender and Equality and Gender Envoy, FCDO.
"For children whose lives have been turned upside down, education offers vital stability and hope for the future. Theirworld will announce additional funding to support refugee education projects in the coming weeks, harnessing its experiences from other emergencies, and campaigning to ensure donors invest 10 per cent of the humanitarian response funding into education," said Justin van Fleet, President of Theirworld.
The war in Ukraine is putting children and adolescents at grave risk. According to the recent estimates, almost five million refugees have fled from Ukraine, whereas, an additional 7.1 million people were said to be internally displaced.
In Ukraine, all the school children have seen their education disrupted by the conflict. More than 900 education facilities have been destroyed or damaged due to the conflict as per the latest estimates. An estimated 3.3 million school-aged children require urgent humanitarian assistance.
The inclusion of refugee children into the national education system is being allowed by the Government of Moldova’s normative framework. The framework is supported by the new allocation in response to the rapidly evolving situation.
The allocation complements ECW’s $5 million First Emergency Response in Ukraine, as a part of its overall response to the crisis. In order to ensure the continuity of education for children who are impacted by the crisis, ECW works with governments, donors, UN agencies, civil society organisations and other strategic partners.
