Washington-SANA
A recent joint report by the World Bank Group and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) revealed that two-thirds of low-income countries have reduced their public budgets devoted to education since the start of the Corona pandemic, despite the need for additional funding.
Xinhua quoted the report issued entitled "Monitoring Education Financing 2021" as saying ... that education budgets are not adapted in proportion to the difficulties caused by the pandemic, especially in poor countries, warning of the risk of further reductions as the pandemic continues to cause economic losses, deterioration of the financial situation and an increase. The disparity already exists in spending between low-income countries and other countries.
According to the report, the reduction was limited to a third of upper middle-income countries and high-income countries only, as these budget cuts were relatively small so far.
Stefania Giannini, Assistant Director-General for Education at UNESCO, said that external funding has become essential to support education opportunities for the poorest countries in the world, adding that it is likely that donor countries will shift their budgets from aid to local priorities, just as health and other emergency situations compete. In order to obtain funds.
UNESCO estimates that educational aid could decline by $ 2 billion from its peak in 2020 and return to 2018 levels for another six years.
