United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organiation (UNESCO) has urged governments and international lenders to expand debt-for-education swaps to help tackle a worsening education financing crisis, warning that 113 countries now spend more on servicing debt than on educating their populations.
UNESCO launched new guidance on debt swaps at a global education summit in Paris on Friday, arguing that the mechanism could help heavily indebted countries redirect scarce resources towards schools, teacher training and student support.
Debt-for-education swaps allow countries to refinance or buy back expensive debt and channel the savings into education.
The World Bank has recently started backing such arrangements, and UNESCO pointed to bilateral examples including a 2023 agreement with France that helped Ivory Coast finance the construction of more than 30 schools, and a Spain-Peru programme that funded 50 education projects over a decade.
UNESCO’s call comes as new research highlights mounting pressure on education budgets worldwide. According to the agency, 113 countries, home to 6.1 billion people, spend more on debt servicing than on education.
–Reuters–
