Launch of the 3rd Annual G7 Global Objectives Report: Examining the Effects of Emergencies and Protracted Crises on Girls’ Education

In 2021, the G7 endorsed two Global Objectives to be achieved by 2026 in low- and lower-middle-income countries:

1. 40 million more girls in primary and secondary school

2. 20 million more girls reading by age ten or end of primary school

These objectives recognise that marginalised girls are often left furthest behind as a result of poverty, rurality, caste, disability, displacement, and the ‘double disadvantage’ that harmful gender norms impose. The objectives are also intended to be steppingstones towards the SDG 2030 targets of universal primary and secondary completion and minimum learning proficiency for all.

This year’s Global Objectives Report has a focus on Education in Emergencies and Protracted Crises (EiEPC) because the ability to get 40 million more girls into school and 20 million more reading is significantly affected by conflict, climate crisis, political insecurity, global pandemics, violence and in many cases, a combination of these. Unfortunately, crises are growing in frequency and duration. In 2023, the reporting period for this report, the number of conflicts globally increased by 28% compared to the previous year. In addition, extreme weather events linked to climate change have occurred five times as often as 50 years ago. As a result, it is estimated that the number of crisis-affected school-aged children and youth worldwide has increased by at least 35 million over the past three years, totalling 234 million. Approximately 85 million of these children (37%) are out of school.

Crises do not discriminate and disadvantage everyone caught within them. However, those who were most marginalised prior to a crisis – due to poverty, rurality or disability, amongst others – will likely suffer the greatest disadvantage during and after the crisis as well. Within these marginalised groups, harmful gender norms are exacerbated and put girls at an even greater disadvantage than boys. Examples of this include conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) such as rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced marriage and other forms of sexual violence. Boys may experience CRSV in some cases, but it is more likely that they will be targeted and recruited by gangs or armed groups, which puts them at an increased risk of death or disability from conflict, and can also increase their likelihood of perpetrating CRSV.

In some crisis contexts, girls are sequestered within the home for fear of damaging ‘family honour’ if they become a victim to heightened sexual violence, which in extreme cases, can lead to honour killings. Being at risk of rape whilst outside the home is one illustration of the impact of highly harmful gender norms. Being punished through death as a result of this rape reflects societal gender norms that are beyond pernicious.

That said, there is wide recognition that education is vital during crises, particularly for girls. It offers life-saving protection, stability, skills and supports resilience both during and in the years following trauma. Given the importance of education for girls in crisis contexts, this year’s report examines progress towards the Global Objectives through the lens of EiEPC. More specifically, the report:

1.     Provides a progress update for Objective One, drawing on UIS data and noting the limitations of data from EiEPC contexts, as well as how these are being addressed.

2.     Provides a progress update for Global Objective Two, for which there is a limited number of countries with new data. The benefits and limitations of the reading data are discussed, particularly in relation to EiEPC contexts.

3.     Explores what we know about progress towards the Global Objectives in crisis-affected contexts, particularly with regard to education provision and gender inequalities. This will be done through conducting deep dives into five crisis-affected contexts.

4.     Highlights programming supported by G7 partners that is contributing to girls’ access to formal and non-formal education in crisis-affected contexts.

5.     Reflects on progress against last year’s recommended strategies, discusses what remains to be done and suggests further recommendations, particularly regarding EiEPC contexts.

It should be noted that during the writing of this report, the aid sector saw significant cuts by major donors, including USAID. The UK government announced cuts to the aid budget from 0.5% to 0.3% of gross national income. Additional G7 donors have made or are also expected to make cuts. These changes, particularly the rapid dismantling of USAID, will impact the Global Objectives and the aid sector more broadly, which now needs to rethink its approach to poverty reduction and development. It goes without saying that these events will only make efforts to educate children in crisis contexts more challenging and complicated.

Although the trajectory for aid is still unknown, the following are key findings from the report and accompanying recommendations:

Finding: Both Global Objectives are significantly off-track, and strategic action is required for substantive progress to be made by 2026. Although this finding is for the reporting period of 2023, it is set against a backdrop of ever-changing politics, priorities and aid budgets. This instability presents a significant challenge for the achievement of the Global Objectives - but disengagement now has serious implications: if girls are not educated, there will be increases in child marriage, adolescent pregnancy, lifetime fertility, maternal mortality, and exposure to gender-based violence. Conversely, continued investment in girls’ education will have beneficial spillover effects in the long-term: an estimated $28 trillion could be added to global GDP, carbon emissions have the potential to reduce by 85.4 gigatons, and the success and longevity of peace processes would likely increase by 64%. The stability and security effects of girls’ education are even more imperative in a global context that has become increasingly volatile.

Recommendation 1: Continue strategic engagement with and investment in the Global Objectives where possible, particularly in conflict and crisis-affected contexts. G7 partners should also aim to influence ministries, donors and other actors to align with the achievement of the Global Objectives so that ownership reaches beyond the G7.

Finding: Harmful gender norms seriously undermine achievement of the Global Objectives, most notably in crisis contexts. Nine of the twelve countries with between 40-75% of school-aged girls out of school were experiencing severe levels of crisis in 2023. These countries included Afghanistan, Niger, South Sudan, Central African Republic, and Eritrea, amongst others. These countries also had the largest gender gaps in relation to boys, which illustrates how crisis exacerbates harmful norms that put girls at an even greater disadvantage than boys. Moreover, these harmful gender norms also result in large numbers of boys dropping out of school, as mothers and women are excluded from labour markets, thereby putting pressure on boys to supplement family incomes.

Recommendation 2: Support Education in Emergencies and Protracted Crises programming that aims to advance gender equality in, around and through education. The most effective way to support the achievement of the Global Objectives of girls returning to school and learning to read is to support programming that targets gender norms: 1) in education (i.e., amongst teachers, pedagogy, materials); 2) around education (i.e., amongst parents, communities); and 3) through education (i.e., as a result of all parts of the education system actively challenging unequal norms). Programming that aims to build the evidence base and measure progress towards gender equality in/around/through education, is also essential.

Finding: The data used for Global Objectives reporting significantly limit the ability to monitor progress and target support, particularly in crisis contexts. Although the Global Objectives were designed to provide stepping stones to achieve key SDG indicators (and thus use the same SDG data), the additional aim of helping G7 partners better target their education support requires a broader set of data than what is currently being used. Precedent from other sectors demonstrates that including multiple forms of data can support more frequent progress monitoring and deeper analyses, versus excluding additional data sources due to strict protocols and definitions. Although data parameters are important, they need to be pragmatic and implementable.

Recommendation 3: The data used to report on OOS girls do not include all girls who are OOS in crisis-affected contexts, and they should. There is work in train by the Education Data and Statistics Commission (EDSC) Task Force to adjust country- and global-level data to include OOS children in crisis-affected countries. Encouragingly, since the compilation of this report, UIS have updated their data for 2023, which now incorporate external information from the ten largest conflict zones. Whilst the inclusion of these additional data is a positive step, there is still scope for more progress. EDSC work should be prioritised so that all crisis-affected children are included in global OOS data, which can also be used for the next Global Objectives Report.

Recommendation 4: The data used for girls’ reading should include additional data sources in order to provide a clearer picture of which girls aren’t reading. There are a number of data sources that glean reading data at the household level; thereby including OOS children, reaching more crisis-affected areas and testing reading ability in more languages. These data sources should supplement current reading data and be included in future Global Objectives reports in order to help G7 partners and the global community better target education support prior to 2026.

Finding: Education in crisis contexts offers stability, protection and a second chance to the most disadvantaged children, especially girls – but there is no global system for measuring the impact of this education provision. As a result, education in emergencies is overlooked and not included in the Global Objectives or SDG data. The Global Education Cluster reports on the ‘reach’ of humanitarian funding for education in emergencies, but it only captures some of what is being achieved. There needs to be a more robust way to systematically measure the impact of education that is delivered outside formal schooling in emergency and protracted crisis contexts. This should be done at both the country and global levels to support accountability and planning purposes.

Recommendation 5: The global community should invest in better monitoring of the impact of education in emergencies investments across humanitarian and development programming and improve the definition of the term ‘reach’. This monitoring system could be akin to a global EiEPC EMIS (Education Management and Information System) that collates sex-disaggregated data related to students, teachers and learning, in order to support better decision making and policy formulation. Although such a system would take significant political, technical and structural effort, it is something to consider if education in emergencies is to be taken seriously and potentially incorporated in future Global Objectives or SDG reporting.

Finding: Non-formal education (NFE) in crisis and non-crisis contexts offers stability, protection and a second chance to the most disadvantaged girls - but the definitions and data used for the Global Objectives, and the SDGs they are predicated upon, do not include children reached by NFE. Because NFE is not considered ‘school’, it is overlooked. However, it would be valuable to capture the children who are being served by quality NFE in definitions of ‘education’ so that NFE, and the most marginalised children to whom it caters, are accounted for in MoE planning, budgeting, certification and EMIS monitoring, amongst other processes. Such a definitional broadening – and potential structural shift – is something to consider if the Leave No One Behind agenda is to be taken seriously.

Recommendation 6: Advocate for the need to include children served by quality non-formal education within definitions of ‘education’, because SDG4 indicators currently define education as only taking place within schools. The provision of non-formal education is particularly pertinent in crisis settings where access to formal schooling is significantly limited. Consideration should be given to how we define and measure ‘education’ across the board, particularly as we approach 2030 and discussions of a successor system to the SDGs.

A detailed discussion of these findings and recommendations can be found in the recently launched G7 Global Objectives Report on Education in Emergencies and Protracted Crises. In addition to this, a series of blogs will be launched over the coming months to provide synopses of the key themes contained in the report; and this will culminate in a presentation on the report at the UKFIET Conference at the University of Oxford in September 2025.

Overall, in a global context of increasing crises, budget cuts and political volatility, it is hoped that this report demonstrates that although the most marginalised girls are still being left furthest behind, there is still an opportunity to support the Global Objectives of getting 40 million more of these girls back into school and learning. Given the stability and security effects of girls’ education, this support makes sense strategically and pragmatically, now more than ever.  

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Written by Dr Sharon Tao, Founder and Director of Level The Field. This blog was drawn from a published report prepared by Level The Field, which aims to stimulate dialogue and new ways of thinking around the tensions, debates and challenges facing girls’ education. See report for a full list of references.