We write to call for urgent action to address the global education emergency triggered by COVID-19. With over one billion children still out of school because of the lockdown, there is now a real and present danger that the public health crisis will create a COVID generation who lose out on schooling and whose opportunities are permanently damaged. While the more fortunate have had access to alternatives, the world’s poorest children have been locked out of learning, denied internet access, and with the loss of free school meals – once a lifeline for 300 million boys and girls – hunger has grown.
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 – 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 4 August 2020.
Yet at the very time we need extra resources, education funding is in danger on three fronts:
- As slower or negative growth undermines tax revenues, less money may be available in almost every country for public services, including education.
- When allocating limited funds, some governments may leave education crowded-out and underfunded as they prioritise expenditure on health and economic recovery.
- 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, the 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 Sustainable Development Goal 4 to be resumed:
- First, every country should pledge to protect frontline education spending, prioritising the needs of the most disadvantaged children through, where possible, conditional and unconditional cash transfers to promote school participation.
- 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 will 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.
- 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 two years the replenishment of Global Partnership for Education (GPE), scaled up investment in Education Cannot Wait (ECW) 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
Professor Erik Berglöf
Director of the Institute of Global Affairs, London School of Economics; Chief Economist of the EBRD (2006-2014)
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 of 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
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
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
Hélène Rey
Professor of Economics, London Business School
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
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 Children 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 TNLA, Republic of South Sudan
Olayiwola Jamiu Ojodu MP
Member, Ogun State House of Assembly of the Republic of Ghana
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
