Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and my co-chair of today’s meeting, Prof. Khaled El-Enany,
Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ms. Amina Mohamed,
Your Excellencies, members of the High-Level Steering Committee,
Ministers and global education leaders,
Guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,

Good morning. 

It is indeed an honour for South Africa to co-chair this Leaders Group meeting alongside the Director-General.
SDG 4 occupies a unique position in that it is the bedrock and the enabler of the other SDGs. It is a catalyst for expanding human capability, unlocking opportunity, and delivering progress across the full ambition of Agenda 2030. 

We meet at a time when our world faces complex and interconnected challenges including conflicts, pandemics, poverty and inequality, and the worsening impacts of climate change. This makes the global SDG 4 agenda more critical than ever.

Inclusive and equitable quality education is the key to building resilience and to fostering sustainable societies.

Three pillars are at the center of our Committee’s work; namely foundational and lifelong learning, the teaching profession, and inclusive digital transformation.

Strong literacy, numeracy and socio-emotional skills are the scaffolding that holds up the educational journey. 
The learning environment thrives and outcomes vastly improve when teachers are capacitated, given the necessary resources, and supported in their work.

Digital transformation in education is a non-negotiable if we are to adequately prepare today’s learners for the workplaces, economies and societies of the future.

Global public policy has long recognized that beyond being a universal human right, education is a public good.

As such, it must be safeguarded against commodification, and from becoming a privilege that excludes millions of people on account of geography, age, income, gender or personal circumstances. This is what leaving no-one behind means.

For education to deliver on its universal and timeless promise, we have to fix the way it is financed.

Last March, the Global Partnership for Education, UNESCO, UNICEF, the World Bank and G7 partners endorsed the Sustainable Financing Pathways. This is a country-owned blueprint that moves us away from fragmented aid to credible, long-term fiscal frameworks. 

Leveraging domestic resources is at the heart of this model, as is ensuring that both concessional finance and private capital are aligned with national strategies. 
Innovation is key; and we are already seeing instruments such as debt-for-education swaps being piloted in Indonesia and Côte d’Ivoire, with the view to scale.

We know that in far too many instances globally, scarce financial resources that could be invested in education are being lost or witted away due to mismanagement, corruption and poor planning.

There are notable initiatives underway to strengthen public financial management in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordon, in Madagascar, in Burkina Faso and other countries, and these must be encouraged and supported.

Finally, we are already shaping what comes after 2030. 

Through an ambitious consultation that began in January, 20,000 young people from 95 countries have told us what they need. They want barriers to education access removed; greater attention to mental health, flexible learning pathways, and a tangible role in decision-making. 

At the same time, 747 experts from 111 countries are mapping the megatrends that will define education in the decades ahead. Their insights will feed into the Global Education Futures Outlook that will be presented at the 2027 Global Education Meeting.

Resilience, financing and the post-2030 agenda are streams travelling towards one destination, namely resilient education systems that anticipate disruption, that adapt with equity, and that are ultimately transformative.

The responsibility now falls to each of us. 
Member States must embed risk-informed policies into every sectoral strategy, partners must align with country-led investment plans rather than creating new projects, young people must be treated as co-creators and not only beneficiaries, and gender-responsive planning must become the norm.

During South Africa’s Presidency of the G20 last year, we sought to align the outcomes of our Presidency with the SGD 4 global agenda by championing foundation quality learning, strengthening the education profession and promoting mutual recognition of qualifications and skills across borders. 

We encourage Members of this Committee to maintain strong alignment between the education priorities advanced through the G20 and the work of the HLSC.

Let us leave Paris today with the resolve to turn the decisions of this Committee into the daily reality of every learner. The generation of today and the generations of the future are counting on us to build and deliver education systems worthy of their promise.

I thank you.