Webinar: Save our Education Budgets: Maintaining Expenditure Post-Pandemic by Learnit

About This Webinar

COVID-19 has simultaneously spurred a mass contraction of global GDP and a mass expansion of need. This increased demand on government budgets is causing national deficits to grow at a terrifying rate as countries grapple with the economic consequences of the pandemic.

As governments and philanthropic bodies move their spend to urgent social protection and economic revival programmes, how do we protect education budgets, which in many countries and states were already stretched?

This panel believes we need a new global narrative for education - one that clearly demonstrates the key role education will play in our recovery -- at the individual, family, community, national, and global levels. This isn’t just a policy conversation, this is a call to arms to #saveoureducationbudgets.

The latest of our virtual sessions is delivered in partnership with the Brookings Institution and moderated by Rebecca Winthrop, Senior Fellow, Global Economy & Development; Co-director, Center for Universal Education, The Brookings Institution.

Join us for a 60 minute moderated session, followed by a 15 minute Q&A.

Rebecca Winthrop

Senior Fellow, Global Economy & Development; Co-director, Center for Universal Education, The Brookings Institution (USA)

Rebecca Winthrop is a senior fellow and co-director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution. Her research focuses on education globally, with special attention to the skills young people need to thrive in work, life, and as constructive citizens.
Dr. Winthrop works to promote quality and relevant education, including exploring how education innovations can leapfrog progress, particularly for the most marginalized children and youth. She advises governments, international institutions, foundations, civil society organizations, and corporations on education issues. She currently serves as a board member and advisor for a number of global education organizations and lectures at Georgetown University.
Winthrop has authored numerous articles, reports, books, and book chapters, including most recently Leapfrogging Inequality: Remaking Education to Help Young People Thrive with Adam Barton and Eileen McGivney.
She was educated at Columbia University, Teachers College (Ph.D., 2008), Columbia University, School of International and Public Affairs (MA, 2001), and Swarthmore College, (BA, 1996).

Alice Albright

CEO, Global Partnership for Education (USA)

Alice P. Albright is the Chief Executive Officer of the Global Partnership for Education. She has over 30 years of international experience in the private, non-profit and public sectors. Ms. Albright previously served as the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank), and the Chief Financial and Investment Officer for the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI).

Chernor Bah

Co-Founder & CEO, Purposeful (Sierra Leone)

Chernor is a feminist activist who has dedicated his life to building the power and amplifying the voices of girls and young people across the globe and in his beloved Sierra Leone.
At the age of just 15, Chernor founded and led the Children's Forum Network, a mass movement of children who organised and mobilised to demand their voices be included in peace and reconciliation efforts after Sierra Leone's brutal civil war. Decades later, a new generation of Children's Forum Network members still gather across the country every week, a testament to the power of youth voices and an enduring reminder of what mass civic mobilisation can achieve.
Chernor went on to lead initiatives for UNFPA (New York and Liberia), Nike Foundation (Ethiopia and Portland), CRS (the Philippines) and recently at the Population Council (New York). In 2012, Bah co-founded, alongside Gordon Brown (former British Prime Minister), A World at School - a global mobilisation and campaign organisation for global education.
Chernor has twice been appointed by the United Nations Secretary General to high level steering committees, and is an Expert Advisor to the Security Council on Youth Peace and Security. In 2018, he was appointed by the UNICEF Executive Director to the International Task Force on Workplace Gender Discrimination and Harassment.
Chernor has spoken at the White House under President Obama, introduced the First Lady at the UN General Assembly, spoken at the European Union, African Union and the World Bank, and lectured at universities around the world. When Ebola struck Sierra Leone, Chernor returned home and began to organise and mobilise once again. From crisis comes opportunity, and so Purposeful was born, rooted in the most profound belief that not only are adolescent girls powerful, but if we can support her to live in that power, she will lead us all to liberation.

Jamie Drummond

Co-Founder, ONE (UK)

Jamie Drummond is ONE’s Co-Founder. In 1995, Jamie was working on a documentary series in Ethiopia – a country spending more on servicing unjust “cold war-era” debts than on health or education. This gave him an idea – the “Drop the Debt” campaign – drop the debts of highly indebted poor countries that commit to invest the freed up funds in their people and fight corruption. Jamie persuaded Bono to spearhead the campaign and, with others, successfully secured the cancellation of Ethiopia’s national debt, as well as a further US$110 billion dollars of debt for some of the world’s poorest countries.
Over the next two decades, first at DATA.org then at ONE.org, Jamie worked with partners to combine evidence-based policies and public campaigning to launch many successful anti-poverty campaigns. Such as: securing historic levels of investment in health and the fight against preventable diseases – helping reduce the number of people dying from AIDS and malaria by more than a third and preventing the deaths of 4 million children under the age of 5 every year; The “Make Poverty History” campaign which led to a near doubling of aid in a new partnership with Africa and, securing big investments for women and girls’ health, education and economic empowerment through ONE’s Poverty is Sexist campaign.
In 2015, Jamie, ONE and partners helped persuade world leaders to agree Global Goals for Sustainable Development – which we can and must achieve together by 2030.

David Edwards

General Secretary, Education International (Belgium)

David Edwards, PhD is General Secretary of Education International, a federation of 32 million teachers and other educators affiliated with unions and associations in 173 countries globally. Dr. Edwards was appointed to the position in 2018 by the Executive Board, after seven years as EI’s Deputy General Secretary directing education policy, advocacy, research and communications. He was then elected, unopposed, at the World Congress in Thailand in 2019.
Prior to joining EI, Edwards was an Associate Director at the National Education Association of the United States. He has worked as an Education Specialist at the Organization of American States and began his career as a public high school teacher.
A Pennsylvania native, Edwards is fluent in Spanish and German and is conversant in French. His doctorate in Educational Policy and Leadership is from the University of Maryland in the U.S. Away from the commitments of work, he devotes his time to his wife and three daughters.

Robert Jenkins

Associate Director, Chief of Education, UNICEF (US)

Robert Jenkins, Chief, Education and Associate Director, Programme Division, UNICEF Headquarters, joined UNICEF in 1995. He brings over 20 years of experience in international development and humanitarian programming in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
Prior to his current appointment, Mr. Jenkins served as the UNICEF Representative, Jordan, from 2014-2019, and Deputy Director, Division of Policy and Strategy in UNICEF Headquarters from 2009-2014.
From 1995-2009, Robert Jenkins served with UNICEF in programme and management positions in Uganda (1995-1997), Bangladesh (1997-2000), Myanmar (2000-2003), India (2003-2006) and Mozambique (2006-2009).
Mr. Jenkins earned a Doctor of Education Degree from the University of Bath and a Master’s Degree from the London School of Economics in the United Kingdom.
Mr. Jenkins is married and has a daughter and a son. He is a Canadian citizen.

Laurie Forcier

Before joining Learnit, Laurie directed Pearson’s programme of global thought leadership, translating world-class education research into forward-looking pieces that would be practical and accessible, creative and inspirational.
Laurie has nearly 20 years of experience in the education sector, covering research, evaluation, policy, and administration, and previously worked at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and at the Urban Institute, a Washington, DC-based think tank. She is the co-editor of Improving the Odds for America’s Children: Future Directions in Policy and Practice (Harvard Education Press, 2014), and co-author of Intelligence Unleashed: An Argument for AI in Education (Pearson, 2016).