Providing quality schooling for the 75 million children worldwide impacted by conflict, natural disasters, or epidemics each year remains a challenge for the humanitarian community, with education advocates estimating that less than 4 percent of overall humanitarian aid supports the sector.

Children without schooling are more likely to be exposed to violence, child labor, child marriage, and recruitment by extremist groups, often triggered by distress and desperation.

“Education is the foundation of all other sectors, whether we want to have peace and security; we want to address the youth; conflict prevention; even health and good governance cannot come without education,” Education Cannot Wait Director Yasmine Sherif told Devex at the Global Partnership for Education Financing conference in Dakar last month.

Education Cannot Wait was launched during the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit as the first global fund focused on forging public-private partnerships that provide education for children in crisis-affected situations. Though studies show how education can help prevent crises, education in emergencies has one of the widest unmet funding gaps, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs financial tracking system.

Read more about the views and goals of Education Cannot Wait by Christin Roby at Devex International Development