Education Cannot Wait Announces US$8 Million Catalytic Grant to Scale-Up Multi-Year Resilience Programme in Ecuador, Issues Call for More Funding

Since 2014, close to 8 million Venezuelans have left their home, making this the largest displacement crisis in Latin America. In Ecuador, the large influx of refugees and migrants – combined with the compounding impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, economic, political and social upheaval, and a concerning increase in violence and forced displacement – has disrupted the education for a large number of refugee, migrant and host community children.

In response to these challenges, Education Cannot Wait (ECW) and its global strategic partners announced today a new US$8 million catalytic Multi-Year Resilience Programme grant that will be delivered by a consortium of partners, led by RET International in coordination with Ecuador’s Ministry of Education and local partners, to reach a total of 42,700 children and adolescents. Consortium partners include Plan International, ChildFund, and the Ibero-American Institute of Natural and Cultural Heritage of the Andrés Bello Convention Organization (IPANC-CAB).

The grant builds on the impact of ECW’s investments in Ecuador, which have reached a total of 300,000 children to date. Total ECW funding in Ecuador now tops US$17.8 million, with two previous rounds of First Emergency Response funding at the total of US$2.45 million, and the first Multi-Year Resilience Programme financing (2021-2024) at US$7.4 million. 

“Education is a lifeline for children living in Ecuador. In all, two out of ten refugee and migrant children are out of school. And violence, economic uncertainty and insecurity continue to plague the nation and the region as a whole. We are calling on world leaders to urgently step-up funding. Our investment in education is our investment in the vast potential of Latin America’s children and youth,” said Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait, the global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises within the United Nations.

“In the Ministry of Education, we promote inclusive education as a fundamental pillar to guarantee the right to education of children and adolescents, regardless of their nationality. In this way, Ecuador has become a regional benchmark for its inclusive regulations. The Multi-Year Resilience Programme has been a key programme for joining efforts and articulating actions at the national and territorial levels, under the principle of ‘leaving no one behind,’” said Alegría Crespo, Minister of Education in Ecuador. “Beyond access to the educational system, we are currently working on retention, and prevention of school dropouts, which affect particularly displaced and refugee children. We thank ECW and the organizations that share our vision and collaborate with us to face these challenges under an approach of co-responsibility and respect for human rights.”

While the Government of Ecuador has taken notable steps to include refugees in the national education system – notably the Quito Process starting in 2018 and Regularization of the Status of the Venezuelan Refugees in 2022 – the needs are far-outstripping the resources available.

More than 20% of school-aged Venezuelan refugee and migrant children are out of school. About 5% of Ecuadorian children are out of primary school, with the number rising to 10% for secondary school.

Even when they are in school, the quality of education is lagging behind. Recent assessments indicate that around 70% of children are not meeting minimum proficiency levels for language, literature and math.

Lack of safety in and around schools, high rates of gender-based violence, xenophobia and discrimination, and a high prevalence of teenage pregnancy remain concerns.

The programme will ensure access to safe and inclusive education, support retention and strengthen holistic learning outcomes. It also aims to strengthen existing public policies with the aim of improving the resilience of the Ecuadorian education system and guaranteeing the right to education of children, including refugees, migrants and those from host communities in vulnerable situations. These strategies include efforts to support the enrollment of all out-of-school children and strengthen holistic education opportunities, including improved access to mental health and psychosocial support.