Giving Compass' Take:

• A pledge of commitments worth more than $7.6 billion took place in the months leading up to Global Citizen Week that are going to advance global education, maternal health, environment, WASH, and gender equality. 

• What can philanthropists do to strengthen global development initiatives against poverty?  What is their role in helping progress the SDGs? 

• Read about how young people are taking the lead on global goals. 

After a year of experiencing a world where existing progress in gender equality policies has been threatened, Global Citizens took a stand and world leaders heard them. This year’s Global Citizen Festival saw some significant commitments made in the areas of gender equality and education.

In the two months leading up to Global Citizen Week, Global Citizens took over 2.1 million actions to urge world leaders to take a stand against extreme poverty. This resulted in 17 commitments, 23 announcements, and 24 calls to action set to affect the lives of 254 million people.

Here are a few of the top commitments:

  • Environment: Norway made a significant commitment to spend $200m USD to combat marine litter and microplastics over the next four years.
  • Education: This year a total of $494.6m was committed towards various education initiatives on the Global Citizen stage. The Netherlands pledged around $116.8m USD (€100m EUR) to the Global Partnership for Education over three years.
  • Maternal Health: After announcing that they will host the Replenishment Fund for the Global Financial Facility (GFF) in November, Norway made a significant commitment of $360m to GFF, making it the largest donor to the GFF yet.
  • Level the Law: The Gambia is the smallest country in West Africa, but it is set to take the biggest step towards gender equality in the region, repealing and reforming all “sexist laws that seek to perpetuate the continuous suppression of women’s voices, promote gender based violence, act as barriers to equal and meaningful political participation, and hinder access to sexual and reproductive health.
  • Water and Sanitation: The Asian Development Bank made a significant budgetary commitment of $6.61b to water supply and sanitation investments.

Read the full article about global citizen festival by Neha Shah at Global Citizen