{"id":39256,"date":"2026-07-10T10:13:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T08:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=39256"},"modified":"2026-07-10T10:13:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T08:13:12","slug":"unesco-urges-wider-use-of-debt-for-education-swaps","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/unesco-urges-wider-use-of-debt-for-education-swaps\/","title":{"rendered":"UNESCO urges wider use of debt for education swaps"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organiation (UNESCO) has urged governments and \u200cinternational 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.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>UNESCO launched new guidance on debt \u200bswaps at a global education summit in Paris on Friday, arguing that the mechanism could \u200bhelp heavily indebted countries redirect scarce resources towards schools, teacher training and student support.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Debt-for-education \u2060swaps allow countries to refinance or buy back expensive debt and channel the savings into education.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The World \u200bBank has recently started backing such arrangements, and UNESCO pointed to bilateral examples including a 2023 agreement with \u200bFrance 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.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>UNESCO&#8217;s call comes as new research highlights mounting pressure on education budgets worldwide. According to the \u200bagency, 113 countries, home to 6.1 billion people, spend more on debt servicing than on education.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":22143,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-39256","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"UNESCO has urged international lenders to expand debt-for-education","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/39256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/39256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39257,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/39256\/revisions\/39257"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=39256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}