Call for Urgent Action by 300 World Leaders on Global Education Emergency In Face of Covid19

•  new york
• Tuesday, August 18, 2020
• Inter Press Service
• 275 World Leaders Letter to G20, IMF, World Bank, Regional Development Banks and Governments

An immediate concern, as we bring the lockdown to an end, is the fate of an estimated 30 million children who according to UNESCO may never return to school. For these, the world's least advantaged children, education is often the only escape from poverty - a route that is in danger of closing. Many of these children are adolescent girls for whom being in school is the best defence against forced marriage and the best hope for a life of expanded opportunity.

Many more are young children who risk being forced into exploitative and dangerous labour. And because education is linked to progress in virtually every area of human development - from child survival to maternal health, gender equality, job creation and inclusive economic growth - the education emergency will undermine the prospects for achieving all our 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and potentially set back progress on gender equity by years.

According to the World Bank the long-term economic cost of lost schooling could be as much as $10 trillion in lost productive output.

We cannot stand by and allow these young people to be robbed of their education and a fair chance in life.

Instead we should be redoubling our efforts to get all children into school - including the 260 million already out of school and the 75 million children affected by protracted conflicts and forced displacement, including 35 million children living as refugees or internally displaced - with the comprehensive help they need - and to make it possible for young people to start or resume their studies in school further and higher education.

There is a longer-term challenge we must also meet. Even before COVID-19, the world faced a learning crisis. Over half of the children in developing countries suffering 'learning poverty' and even at age 11 had little or no basic literacy and numeracy skills.

As a result, 800 million of today's young people leave education with no qualifications whatsoever. If we are to avoid this, millions of children who are now preparing to return to school, who have lost over half a year of education, need their governments to invest in catch-up programmes and proper learning assessment.

When schools reopened after Pakistan's 2005 earthquake attendance recovered, but four years later children had lost the equivalent of 1.5 years of schooling.

Resources are now urgently needed to get young people back into education and enable them to catch-up. What is more, we should rebuild better: more support for online learning, personalised learning, teacher training, conditional cash transfers for poor families and safer schools that meet ‘distancing' rules, building on the enormous community effort that has been displayed during the pandemic.

And to spur global momentum in support of progress in education, a coalition of global organisations has now joined forces in the ‘Save our Future' initiative launched on August 4.

Yet at the very time we need extra resources, education funding is in danger on three fronts:

1. As slower or negative growth undermines tax revenues, less money may be available in almost every country for public services, including education.
2. When allocating limited funds, some governments may leave education crowded out and underfunded as they prioritise expenditure on health and economic recovery.
3. Intensifying fiscal pressure in developed countries will result in reductions in international development aid, including aid for education, which has already been losing out to other priorities in the allocation of bilateral and multilateral aid. There is also a danger that multilateral donors, who already under-invest in education, will reallocate funds.

The World Bank now estimates that, over the next year, overall education spending in low and middle-income countries could be $100-150 billion lower than previously planned.

This funding crisis will not resolve itself.

We call on the G20, the IMF, World Bank and regional development banks and all countries to recognise the scale of the crisis and support three initiatives to enable catch-up to happen, and progress towards SDG4 to be resumed:

1. First, every country should pledge to protect front line education spending, prioritising the needs of the most disadvantaged children through where possible, conditional and unconditional cash transfers to promote school participation.
2. Second, the international community must increase aid for education, focusing on the most vulnerable, including the poor, girls, children in conflict situations and the disabled. The quickest way to free up resources for education is through debt relief. The 76 poorest countries have to pay $86 billion in debt-service costs over the next two years. We call for debt suspension with a requirement that the money for debt servicing be reallocated to education and other priority investments for children.
3. Third, the IMF should issue $1.2 trillion in Special Drawing Rights (its global reserve asset) and its membership should agree to channel these resources toward the countries that need them most, creating a platform for recovery.

And the World Bank should unlock more support for low income countries through a supplementary International Development Association budget, and, following the lead of the UK and Netherlands which have now pledged $650 million to the new International Finance Facility for Education (IFFEd) to help unlock billions in extra finance for education in lower middle income countries, invite guarantees and grants from donors.

This is in addition to - and compliments - over the next 2 years the replenishment of GPE (Global Partnership for Education) and scaled up investment in ECW (Education Cannot Wait) and continued support for the UN agencies focused on education and children led by UNESCO and UNICEF. We call on private sector corporations and foundations to make support for global education a greater priority.

Sustainable human development can only be built upon a foundation of quality education. While the challenges are momentous, the impact of the crisis on children has made us even more determined to realise our ambition contained in Sustainable Development Goal 4, that ours can be the first generation in history in which every child is at school and has the chance to develop their potential to the full. Now is the time for national governments and the international community to come together to give children and young people the opportunities they deserve and to which they are entitled.

Signed,

María Elena Agüero – Secretary General of the WLA-Club de Madrid

Esko Aho – Prime Minister of Finland (1991-1995)¹

Dr Shamshad Akhtar – UN Under Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ESCAP & Assistant Secretary-General at UN DESA (2013-2018); Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan (2006-2009)²

Dr Farida Allaghi – Ambassador of Libya to the European Union (2015-2016)³

HE Dr Abdulaziz Altwaijri – Director General of the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (1991-2019)³

Mohamed Amersi – Founder & Chairman, The Amersi Foundation

Dr Roger Ames – Director of the Center for Chinese Studies, University of Hawaii

Dr Kwame Anthony Appiah – Professor of Philosophy and Law, NYU

Shaukat Aziz – Prime Minister of Pakistan (2004-2007)³⁴

Professor Julian Baggini – Academic Director of the Royal Institute of Philosophy

Gordon Bajnai – Prime Minister of Hungary (2009-2010)

Harriett Baldwin MP – Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom; Founding Co-Chair, International Parliamentary Network for Education

Jan Peter Balkenende – Prime Minister of the Netherlands (2002-2010)¹

HE Joyce Banda – President of Malawi (2012-2014)¹

Kaushik Basu – President of the International Economic Association; Chief Economist of the World Bank (2012-2016)

Carol Bellamy – Executive Director of UNICEF (1995-2005)²

Nicolas Berggruen – Chairman of the Berggruen Institute⁴

Suman Bery – Chief Economist at Royal Dutch Shell (2012-2016); Director-General of the National Council of Applied Economic Research, New Delhi

Sir Tim Besley – President of the International Economic Association (2014-2017); Professor of Economics and Political Science, LSE

Valdis Birkavs – Prime Minister of Latvia (1993-1994)¹

Tony Blair – Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1997-2007)

Dr Mario Blejer – Governor of the Central Bank of Argentina (2002); Director of the Centre for Central Banking Studies, Bank of England (2003-2008)

Irina Bokova – Director-General of UNESCO (2009-2017)²

Patrick Bolton – Professor of Finance and Economics, Imperial College London; Professor, Columbia University

Kjell Magne Bondevik – Prime Minister of Norway (1997-2000; 2001-2005)¹

Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz – Vice Chancellor, University of Cambridge (2010-2017)

Ouided Bouchamaoui – President of UTICA (2011-2018); Nobel Peace Prize Laureate (2015)³

Dumitru Braghiș – Prime Minister of Moldova (1999-2001)³

María Eugenia Brizuela de Ávila – Minister of Foreign Affairs of El Salvador (1999-2004)²

Gordon Brown – Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (2007-2010)

John Bruton – Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland (1994-1997)¹⁵

Robin Burgess – Professor of Economics, LSE

Kim Campbell – Prime Minister of Canada (1993)¹

Fernando Henrique Cardoso – President of Brazil (1995-2003)¹

Wendy Carlin – Professor of Economics, University College London

Dr Vinton G. Cerf – Co-Inventor of the Internet³

Hikmet Çetin – Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey (1991-1994), Speaker of the Grand National Assembly (1997-1999)³⁵

Baroness Lynda Chalker – Minister of Overseas Development of the United Kingdom (1989-1997)⁵

Professor Bai Chong-En – Dean, Tsinghua School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University

Helen Clark – Prime Minister of New Zealand (1999-2008); UNDP Administrator (2009-2017)¹³⁵

Joe Clark – Prime Minister of Canada (1979-1980)⁵

Emil Constantinescu – President of Romania (1996-2000)³

Radhika Coomaraswamy – UN Under-Secretary-General and Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict (2006-2012); UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women (1994-2003)²

Chester Crocker – Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, United States (1981-1989)⁵

Mirko Cvetković – Prime Minister of Serbia (2008-2012)³

Dr Antonio Damasio – David Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience, Psychology and Philosophy; Director, Brain and Creativity Institute, USC

Dr Hanna Damasio – Dana Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology; Director, Dornsife Cognitive Neuroimaging Center, USC

Marzuki Darusman – Attorney General of Indonesia (1999-2001)⁵

Frederik Willem de Klerk – State President of South Africa (1989-1994)⁵

Kemal Derviş – Minister of Economic Affairs of Turkey (2001-2002); Administrator of UNDP (2005-2009); Senior Fellow Global Economy and Development, Brookings Institute

Beatrice Weder di Mauro – President, Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); Professor of International Economics, Graduate Institute in Geneva

Dr Victor J. Dzau – President of the National Academy of Medicine

Gareth Evans – Foreign Minister of Australia (1988-1996); President and CEO of International Crisis Group (2000-2009)⁵

Professor Sir Jeremy Farrar – Director of the Wellcome Trust

Jan Fischer – Prime Minister of the Czech Republic (2009-2010); Finance Minister (2013-2014)³

Professor Tom Fletcher CMG – UK Ambassador to Lebanon (2011-2015); Principal-Elect of Hertford College, University of Oxford

Vicente Fox – President of Mexico (2000-2006)¹

Franco Frattini – Minister of Foreign Affairs of Italy (2002-2004; 2008-2011); European Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security (2004-2008)³

Dr Anton Friedrich Koch – Professor of Philosophy, Universität Heidelberg

Chiril Gaburici – Prime Minister of Moldova (2015); Minister of Economy and Infrastructure (2018-2019)³

Ahmed Galal – Finance Minister of Egypt (2013-2014)

Nathalie de Gaulle – Chairwoman & Co-founder of NB-INOV; Founder of Under 40³

Lord Anthony Giddens – Director of the London School of Economics (1996–2003); Professor, Department of Sociology, LSE

Dr Lawrence Gonzi – Prime Minister of Malta (2004-2013)⁵

Dr Alexander Görlach – Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Relations, University of Cambridge

Dalia Grybauskaitė – President of the Republic of Lithuania (2009-2019)¹

Rebeca Grynspan – Ibero-American Secretary-General; Second Vice President of Costa Rica (1994-1998); UN Under-Secretary-General and Associate Administrator of UNDP (2010-2014)²

Ameenah Gurib-Fakim – President of Mauritius (2015-2018)³

Sergei Guriev – Chief Economist of the EBRD (2016-2019); Professor of Economics, Sciences Po

Dr Han Seung-soo – Prime Minister of South Korea (2008-2009)¹

Senator Robert M. Hertzberg – Majority Leader of the California State Senate, United States

Dr Noeleen Heyzer – UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ESCAP (2007-2015)²³

Bengt Holmström – Nobel Laureate for Economics (2016); Professor of Economics, MIT

Wang Hui – Professor of Chinese Language, Literature, and History, Tsinghua University

Mo Ibrahim – Founder fo Celtel; Chairman of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation⁴

Enrique Iglesias – Foreign Minister of Uruguay (1985-1988); President of the Inter-American Development Bank (1988-2005)¹⁵

Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu – Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (2004-2014)³

Dalia Itzik – Interim President of Israel (2007); President of the Knesset (2006-2009)³

Mladen Ivanić – Member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (2014-2018)³

Pico Iyer – Distinguished Presidential Fellow, Chapman University; Writer & Essayist, TIME

Garry Jacobs – President & Chief Executive Officer of the World Academy of Art and Science³

HE Ellen Johnson Sirleaf – President of Liberia (2006-2018); Member of The Elders⁵

T. Anthony Jones – Vice-President and Executive Director of the Gorbachev Foundation of North America¹

Ivo Josipović – President of Croatia (2010-2015)¹³

Jean-Claude Juncker – Prime Minister of Luxembourg (1995-2013); President of the European Commission (2014-2019)¹

Mats Karlsson – Vice President, External Affairs at the World Bank (1999-2002)³

Caroline Kende-Robb – Executive Director of the Africa Progress Panel (2011-2017); Secretary General of CARE International (2018-2019)

Rima Khalaf – Executive Secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (2010-2017)²

Dr Moushira Khattab – Executive President, Kemet Boutros Boutros Ghali Foundation for Peace and Knowledge; Minister of Family and Population of Egypt (2009-2011)³

Ban Ki-moon – UN Secretary General (2007-2016); Deputy Chair of The Elders¹

Horst Köhler – President of the Federal Republic of Germany (2004-2010)¹

Jadranka Kosor – Prime Minister of Croatia (2009-2011)³

Professor Anne Krueger – First Deputy Managing Director of the IMF (2001-2006); Senior Research Professor of International Economics, School for Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University

HE John Kufuor – President of Ghana (2001-2009)¹

Chandrika Kumaratunga – President of Sri Lanka (1994-2005)¹³

Aleksander Kwaśniewski – President of Poland (1995-2005)¹

Rachel Kyte – Dean of The Fletcher School, Tufts University; UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All (2016-2019); World Bank Group VP & Special Envoy (2012-2015)²

Ricardo Lagos – President of Chile (2000-2006); Member of the Elders¹⁴

Zlatko Lagumdzija – Prime Minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina (2001- 2002); Foreign Affairs Minister (2012-2015)¹³

Yves Leterme – Prime Minister of Belgium (2008; 2009-2011)¹³

Dr Margaret Levi – Director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences & Professor of Political Science, Stanford University

Professor Justin Yifu Lin – Chief Economist & Senior Vice-President of the World Bank (2008-2012); Dean of Institute of New Structural Economics, Peking University³

Tzipi Livni – Vice Prime Minister & Minister of Foreign Affairs of Israel (2006-2009); Minister of Justice (2013-2014)³

Petru Lucinschi – President of Moldova (1997-2001)³

Ricardo Luna – Minister of Foreign Affairs of Peru (2016-2018)⁵

Nora Lustig – President Emeritus of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association; Professor of Latin American Economics, Tulane University

Graça Machel – Education & Culture Minister of Mozambique (1975-1986); Deputy Chair of The Elders

Sir John Major – Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1990-1997)

Susana Malcorra – UN Under-Secretary-General for Field Support (2008-2012); Chef de Cabinet to UN Secretary-General (2012-2015); Minister of Foreign Affairs of Argentina (2015-2017)²

Purnima Mane – UN Assistant-Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director UNFPA (2007-2012)²

Moussa Mara – Prime Minister of Mali (2014-2015)³

Paul Martin – Prime Minister of Canada (2003-2006)⁴

Colin Mayer CBE – Professor of Management Studies, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford

Péter Medgyessy – Prime Minister of Hungary (2002-2004)³

Rexhep Meidani – President of Albania (1997-2002)¹³

Mario Monti – Prime Minister of Italy (2011-2013)¹⁴

Rovshan Muradov – Secretary General of NGIC

Joseph Muscat – Prime Minister of Malta (2013-2020)³

Mustapha Kamel Nabli – Governor of the Central Bank of Tunisia (2011-2012)

Piroska Nagy-Mohácsi – Programme Director of the Institute of Global Affairs, LSE; Director of Policy, EBRD (2009-2015)

Dawn Nakagawa – Executive Vice President, Berggruen Institute

Dr Rebecca Newberger Goldstein – Philosopher

Bujar Nishani – President of Albania (2012-2017)³

Chief Olusegun Obasanjo – President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999-2007)¹

Josiah Ober – Professor of Political Science and Classics, Stanford University

Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala – Board Chair of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation; Finance Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (2011-2015)

Djoomart Otorbaev – Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan (2014-2015)³

Ana Palacio – Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain (2002-2004)²³⁵

Elsa Papademetriou – Vice President of the Hellenic Parliament (2007-2009)³

George Papandreou – Prime Minister of Greece (2009-2011)³

Andrés Pastrana – President of Colombia (1998-2002)¹

P. J. Patterson – Prime Minister of Jamaica (1992-2005)¹⁵

Dr Philip Pettit – L.S. Rockefeller University Professor of Politics and Human Values, Princeton University

Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering – United States Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (1997-2000); Ambassador to the UN (1989-1992)⁵

Sir Christopher Pissarides – Nobel Laureate for Economics (2010); Professor of Economics & Political Science, LSE

Rosen Plevneliev – President of Bulgaria (2012-2017)³

Richard Portes CBE – Professor of Economics, London Business School; Founder and Honorary President of the Centre for Economic Policy Research

Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca – President of Malta (2014-2019)³

Romano Prodi – Prime Minister of Italy (2006-2008); President of the European Commission (1999-2004)¹

Michael Puett – Walter C. Klein Professor of Chinese History, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilization, Harvard University

Jorge Quiroga – President of Bolivia (2001-2002)¹

Iveta Radičová – Prime Minister of Slovakia (2010-2012)¹

José Ramos Horta – President of Timor Leste (2007-2012)¹⁵

Òscar Ribas Reig – Prime Minister of Andorra (1982-1984; 1990-1994)¹³

Lord George Robertson – Secretary General of NATO (1999-2003)⁵

Mary Robinson – President of Ireland (19990-1997); UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; Chair of the Elders¹

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero – Prime Minister of Spain (2004-2011)¹

Dani Rodrik – President-Elect of the International Economic Association; Professor of International Political Economy, Harvard University

Gérard Roland – Professor of Economics & Professor of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley

Petre Roman – Prime Minister of Romania (1989-1991)¹³

Dr Michael Roth – President of Wesleyan University

Nouriel Roubini – Chairman & CEO, Roubini Macro Associates LLC

Ruslana – World Music Award and Eurovision Song Contest winning recording artist; Special Envoy of NGIC

Isabel Saint Malo – Vice President of Panama (2014-2019)²

Juan Manuel Santos – President of Colombia (2010-2018); Nobel Peace Prize Laureate (2016); Member of The Elders

Amartya Sen – Nobel Laureate for Economics (1998); Professor of Economics & Philosophy, Harvard University

Ismail Serageldin – Vice President of the World Bank (1992-2000); Co-Chair of NGIC

Fatiha Serour – Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Somalia (2013-2014)²

Rosalía Arteaga Serrano – President of Ecuador (1997)³

Dame Jenny Shipley – Prime Minister of New Zealand (1997-1999)¹

Javier Solana – Secretary General of the Council of the EU (1999-2009); Secretary General of NATO (1995-1999)¹⁵

Professor Sir Richard Sorabji – Honorary Fellow, Wolfson College, University of Oxford

Michael Spence – Nobel Laureate for Economics (2001); William R. Berkley Professor in Economics & Business, NYU⁴

Devi Sridhar – Professor of Global Public Health, University of Edinburgh

Dr Eduardo Stein – Vice President of Guatemala (2004-2008)⁵

Lord Nicholas Stern – Chief Economist & Senior Vice-President of the World Bank (2000-2003); Chief Economist of the EBRD (1994-1999) & Professor of Economics and Government, LSE

Joseph Stiglitz – Chief Economist of the World Bank (1997-2000); Nobel Laureate for Economics (2001); Professor, Columbia University⁴

Petar Stoyanov – President of Bulgaria (1997-2002)³

Laimdota Straujuma – Prime Minister of Latvia (2014-2016)³

Lawrence Summers – United States Secretary of the Treasury (1999-2001); Deputy Secretary of the Treasury (1995-1999); Chief Economist of the World Bank (1991-1993); Director of the National Economic Council (2009-2010)⁴

Boris Tadić – President of Serbia (2004-2012)¹³

Jigme Y. Thinley – Prime Minister of Bhutan (2008-2013)¹

Helle Thorning-Schmidt – Prime Minister of Denmark (2011-2015)⁴

Eka Tkeshelashvili – Deputy Prime Minister of Georgia (2010-2012)³

Danilo Türk – President of Slovenia (2007-2012); President of WLA-Club de Madrid

Professor Laura D'Andrea Tyson – Director of the United States National Economic Council (1995-1996); Faculty Director, Haas Institute for Business & Social Impact, University of California, Berkeley⁴

Cassam Uteem – President of Mauritius (1992-2002); Vice-President of WLA-Club de Madrid⁵

Juan Gabriel Valdés – Minister for Foreign Affairs of Chile (1999); Ambassador to the UN (2000-2003)⁵

Marianna Vardinoyannis – UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador; Board Member of NGIC

Emiliana Vegas – Senior Fellow and Co-Director of the Center for Universal Education, Brookings Institution

Andrés Velasco – Finance Minister of Chile (2006-2010); Dean of the School of Public Policy, LSE

Vaira Vike-Freiberga – President of Latvia (1999-2007)¹; Co-Chair of NGIC

Ernst-Ludwig von Thadden – President, Mannheim University (2012-2019); Professor, Economics Department

Filip Vujanović – President of Montenegro (2003-2018)³

Leonard Wantchekon – Founder & President of the African School of Economics; Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University

Shang-Jin Wei – Chief Economist of the Asian Development Bank (2014-2016); Professor of Chinese Business and Economy & Finance and Economics, Columbia Business School

Rebecca Winthrop – Senior Fellow and Co-Director of the Center for Universal Education, Brookings Institution

R. Bin Wong – Distinguished Professor of History; Director of the Asia Institute, UCLA (2004-2016)

Kateryna Yushchenko – First Lady of Ukraine (2005-2010); Board Member of NGIC

Viktor Yushchenko – President of Ukraine (2005-2010)³

Fareed Zakaria – Host of Fareed Zakaria GPS, CNN⁴

Valdis Zatlers – President of Latvia (2007-2011)³

Ernesto Zedillo – President of Mexico (1994-2000); Member of The Elders¹⁴

Min Zhu – Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (2011-2016)⁴

ActionAid UK – Girish Menon, CEO

African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET) – Dr K.Y. Amoako, President and Founder

BRAC International – Dr Muhammad Musa, Executive Director

CARE International UK – Laurie Lee, CEO

Catholic Agency for Oversees Development (CAFOD) – Christine Allen, Director

Save the Childr en International – Inger Ashing, CEO

Save the Children UK – Kevin Watkins, CEO

The Education Commission – Dr Liesbet Steer, Director

Theirworld – Dr Justin van Fleet, President

WaterAid UK – Tim Wainwright, CEO ¹ Member of the World Leadership Alliance-Club de Madrid ² Member of Global Women Leaders: Voices for Change and Inclusion ³ Member of Nizami Ganjavi International Center (NGIC) ⁴ Member of the Berggruen Institute 21st Century Council ⁵ Member of Global Leadership Foundation Members of the Parliamentary Network on the World Bank & IMF

Denis Kpwang Abbé – Senator of the Republic of Cameroon (2013-2018)

Francisco Ashley L. Acedillo – Member, House of Representatives of the Republic of the Philippines (2013-2016)

Mohammed Jawad Ahmed – Advisor to the Speaker, Parliament of the Republic of Iraq

Shakeel Shabbir Ahmed – Member of Parliament, National Assembly of the Republic of Kenya

Shamsul Iskandar Bin Mohd Akin – Member of Parliament of Malaysia

Iqbal Abdul Hussein Almadhy MP – Member of Parliament, Parliament of the Republic of Iraq; President of the PN Chapter in Iraq

Njume Peter Ambang – Member of Parliament of the Republic of Cameroon; Member of the Education and Youth Affairs Committee

Ecaterina Andronescu – Senator, Parliament of Romania; Minister of Education (2018-2019); Professor, University Politehnica of Bucharest

Ibtissame Azzaoui – Member of the Parliament of Morocco

Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin – Second Deputy Speaker, Parliament of Ghana

Alpha Bah – Vice President, National Assembly of Guinea

Hafida Benchahida – Senator of the Republic of Algeria; Founding Member of the Mediterranean Women Mediators Network

Hervé Berville – Member of the National Assembly of the French Republic

Nozha Beyaoui – Member of Parliament of the Republic of Tunisia

Sunjeev Kour Birdi – Member of Parliament, National Assembly of the Republic of Kenya

Gary Bodeau – President of the Chamber of Deputies, National Assembly of the Republic of Haiti (2018-2020)

Peter M. Boehm – Senator, Senate of Canada

Mārtiņš Bondars – Member of Parliament of the Republic of Latvia

Liam Byrne MP – Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom; Chair of the Parliamentary Network on the World Bank and IMF

Professor Alejandro Cacace – Representative, National Congress of Argentina

Yunus Carrim – Member of Parliament, National Council of Provinces of Parliament, Republic of South Africa; Chairperson of the Select Committee on Finance

Giulio Centemero MP – Member of the Chamber of Deputies of Italy; Member of the Finance Committee; Co-Chair, PAM Panel on Trade and Investments

Sarah Champion MP – Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom

Olfa Soukri Cherif – Member of Parliament of the United Republic of Tanzania

Sven Clement – Member of the Luxembourg Chamber of Deputies

Gordana Comic – Member of Parliament, National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia (2001-2020)

Shiddi Usman Danjuma – Member of the National Assembly of the Federal Republic of Nigeria

Colin Deacon – Senator, Senate of Canada

Issa Mardo Djabir MP – Member of the National Assembly of the Republic of Chad

Percy E. Downe – Senator, Senate of Canada

Worlea-Saywah Dunah – Founder and Chairman of the Board, Center for Africa Development and Democracy

Nathaniel Erskine-Smith – Member of Parliament of Canada

Marouan Felfel – Member of Parliament of the Republic of Tunisia

Cedric Thomas Frolick – Member of Parliament, National Assembly of Parliament of the Republic of South Africa

Mahmut Celadet Gaydalı – Member of Parliament of the Republic of Turkey

Hajia Alijata sulemana Gbentie – Member of Parliament of the Republic of Ghana (2013-2016)

Najeeb Ghanem – Member of the House of Representatives, Parliament of Yemen

Hawa Abdulrahman Ghasia – Member of Parliament of the United Republic of Tanzania (2005-2020)

Preet Kaur Gill MP – Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom; Shadow Secretary of State for International Development

Patrick Grady MP – Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom

Dr Lahcen Haddad – Member of the Parliament of Morocco; Minister of Tourism, Government of Morocco (2012-2016); Vice President of the SID International Governing Council

Laura Angélica Rojas Hernández – Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies of Mexico

Anthony Kimani Ichung'Wah – Member of Parliament, National Assembly of the Republic of Kenya

Eunice Kabiru – Member of Parliament of Estonia

Rebecca Yei Kamara – Member of Parliament, Parliament of Sierra Leone

Abdul Kargbo – Member of Parliament, Parliament of Sierra Leone

Gideon Keter – Member of Parliament, National Assembly of the Republic of Kenya

Volkmar Klein – Member of the Bundestag of the Federal Republic of Germany

John Muiruri Makuno – Director, Action for Children in Conflict UK

Doruntinë E. Maloku – Member of Parliament of the Republic of Kosovo; Chair of the Committee on Economic Development

Teodomiro Nzé Mangué – Senator, Senate of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea

Janet Zebedayo Mbene – Member of Parliament of the United Republic of Tanzania

Betty McCollum – Congresswoman, United States House of Representatives

Hayat Meziani – Member of Parliament of the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria (2012-2017)

Dr Ammar Moussi – Member of Parliament of the Republic of Algeria

Ruzanna Muradyan – Founder, Education Without Boundaries

Irene Wairimu Mwangi – Public Policy Specialist, Kenya

Cornelius Mweetwa – Member of Parliament of the Republic of Zambia

Adamou Namata – Member of the National Assembly of the Federal Republic of Nigeria

Bekono Ebah epse Ndoumou – Member of Parliament of the Republic of Cameroon

Professor George Bureng V. Nyombe – Chairperson of the Committee for Foreign Affairs, Transitional National Legislative Assembly (TNLA), Republic of South Sudan

Hassan Omar Mohamed – Member of Parliament, National Assembly of the Republic of Djibouti; President of the Parliamentary Group of Population and Development

Margaret Mary Quirk MLA – Member of the Parliament of Western Australia

Niki Rattle – Speaker of Parliament of the Cook Islands

Mohamed-Iqbal Ravalia – Senator, Senate of Canada

Dharma Raj Regmi – Parliamentarian, Federal Parliament of Nepal

Dr Azmi Shuaibi – Anti-Corruption Advisor, TI Palestine, Transparency International

Amanda Simard MPP – Member of the Provincial Parliament, Legislative Assembly of Ontario

Andres Sutt – Member of Parliament of Estonia; Deputy Governor and Member of the Executive Board, Bank of Estonia (2001-2009)

Catherine Zainab Tarawally – Member of Parliament, Parliament of Sierra Leone; Deputy Whip, All People's Congress Party

Dr Olanrewaju Adeyemi Tejuoso – Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (2015-2019)

Umayya Toukan – Senator, Parliament of Jordan

Nguyen Tuong Van – Secretary General of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly

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