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As G20 Member States prepare to meet to agree on a common international strategy in response to the crisis in Afghanistan, they must ensure that the strategy includes a plan to uphold every child’s right to quality education.

While stressing that the goal across countries is to promote safer, in-person learning and child care, WHO suggested that decisions on full or partial closure or reopening should be taken at the local administrative level, guided by local levels of transmission of virus and the extent to which reopening of schools may enhance transmission in the community

Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan has said preventing women from accessing education in neighbouring Afghanistan would be un-Islamic.

A year and a half since the COVID-19 pandemic caused unprecedented global school closures, many students have been able to resume in-class learning, but millions have yet to return to the classroom. Schools are now fully open in 117 countries with a combined learner population of 539 million ranging from pre-primary to secondary levels.

The United Nations drummed up more than $1.2 billion in emergency pledges Monday for helping 11 million Afghans facing an escalating humanitarian crisis in their homeland and millions more elsewhere in the region as the U.N. human rights chief voiced concerns about the Taliban’s first steps in establishing power in the beleaguered and impoverished country.

The international community pledged more than $1 billion in emergency funding as Afghans already unsure of where their next meal will come from risk running out of food just as winter sets in.

Malala Yousafzai's speech to the UN Security Council regarding the situation in Afghanistan. 

Explosive weapons were used to attack about 40 schools in Afghanistan during the first six months of 2021, as Taliban forces took over key territories, the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA) said in a report released today.   Most of the 185 students and teachers killed or wounded in these attacks were girls and women.

"Education,” wrote Nelson Mandela, “is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.” One wonders what he would have made of the response to the education crisis triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic. A crisis threatening to derail social and economic progress, trapping millions of children in poverty.

The Refugee Olympic team has brought the refugee crisis back into the spotlight and rightly so. According to Amnesty International, there are currently 26 million refugees globally – 7.1 million of who are school-aged children. The needs of refugee children can be incredibly complex as a result of their experiences in crises and conflict-affected countries.