PARIS – The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has warned that the global education financing crisis is deepening, revealing that 113 countries now spend more on servicing their public debt than on education.
The warning came as UNESCO convened the Transforming Education Summit +4, bringing together world leaders and education officials to identify solutions to the growing funding gap ahead of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals deadline.
According to new research released by UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring Report, international aid to education declined by 8% in 2024 compared with the previous year, while aid to basic education dropped by 15%. UNESCO projects that global education aid could fall by as much as 30% between 2023 and 2027.
The organization estimates that low- and lower-middle-income countries face an annual education financing gap of US$97 billion, with many already experiencing sharp reductions in aid. Countries such as Afghanistan, Liberia, Mali and Niger have lost more than 40% of the education assistance they received in 2023.
UNESCO also noted that education's share of global development assistance fell to 7.5% in 2024, the lowest level in two decades. It added that global military spending in just 37 hours exceeds the amount allocated to education aid for an entire year.
A separate UNESCO report found that the growing debt burden is placing additional pressure on education budgets. In low-income countries, debt servicing payments are nearly four times higher than education spending, while in 18 of the most heavily indebted countries they exceed education expenditure by at least fivefold.
To address the crisis, UNESCO launched a technical guide promoting debt-for-education swaps, a financing mechanism that allows countries to convert part of their external debt into investments in education. The organization highlighted successful examples in Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, and Peru, where debt swap agreements helped finance school construction, school feeding programmes, and education projects benefiting hundreds of thousands of students.
The summit also focused on the role of artificial intelligence in education, the resilience of education systems in the face of climate change and crises, and shaping the global education agenda beyond 2030.
Speaking at the summit, United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed stressed that the next five years will determine progress toward achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4, which aims to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all.
