Qatar turns spotlight on girls’ right to education in emergency situations

The Permanent Mission of the State of Qatar to the United Nations in collaboration with Portugal, Norway, the Ford Foundation, and the Education Above All foundation held a working session to highlight the “girls’ right to education in emergency situations”.  
The session was held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly High-Level Thematic Debate on Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which began last Thursday, and ahead of the world humanitarian summit that will be convened in Istanbul on May 23.  
In her remarks at the meeting, HE the Permanent Representative of Qatar to the United Nations ambassador Sheikha Alia Ahmed bint Saif al-Thani said that the meeting seeks to exchange views and focus on developing practical policy to be presented at the Istanbul Summit.
She hoped that the meeting will provide greater impetus to better ensure that the education of girls in emergency situations is at the forefront of the commitments and practical measures that might emerge from the Istanbul Summit.  
Meanwhile, Dr Ahmed bin Mohamed al-Muraikhi, Director of the Department for International Development at the Foreign Ministry, called on the international community and organisations to give greater attention to human development, stressing on the need to ensure the right to education in emergency situations as well as on the importance of finding ways to protect the fundamental rights of the children to education all over the world.  
He also reaffirmed Qatar’s commitment to the realisation of the right to education, and pointed to numerous initiatives undertaken by the State of Qatar in this regard, most notably the Education Above All initiative “Educate a Child”. He explained that this initiative focused on two challenges, the first of which is the need to teach children in times of conflicts and crises, and the second is to implement the remainder of the second Millennium Development Goals.  
He pointed also to the initiative launched by the State of Qatar during the third donors’ conference in Syria, where it established a fund for the education and training of Syrian children who have been displaced and refugees.  
Participating in the session were Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Co-ordinator Kyung-Wha Kang, the Director for Youth Opportunity and Learning at the Ford Foundation David Barth, the Director of the Women’s Foreign Policy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations Rachel Vogelstein, Chief Executive Officer of Education Above All Fahad al-Sulaiti, Alejandro of the Global Partnership for Education, the President and Director of the Institute of International Education in the United States Dr Allan Goodman, Senior Adviser on Education at UN Women Dr Patience Stephens, and the Director of Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies Dean Brooks.  
Chief of Education, Programme Division in the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) Jo Bourne moderated the meeting, which was also attended by a number of representatives of the UN member-states, and a number of experts and representatives of non-governmental organisations.  
The participants praised the initiative of Qatar and the role it plays in order to ensure the right to education in emergency situations. They stressed the importance of the role that could be made by stakeholders to generate momentum in the run up to the Istanbul summit through multilateral action in order to guarantee the right of girls to education in emergencies and long-term crises.  
The participants also identified gaps and challenges to girls’ education in emergencies, and discussed the best ways to provide educational opportunities for displaced girls and boys. They highlighted the political and financial solutions to ensure that the right to education in emergency situations is at the forefront of the commitments and practical measures that might emerge from the Istanbul Summit.