Education for all children in Africa is possible with Innovative Financing.

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), approximately 18 million children, or almost one-third of the world’s 61 million children of primary school age, do not attend school. Prominent in UNICEF’s very first global “out-of-school” ranking are those countries in Africa which are coping with conflict. The ranking shows that the 10 worst countries for access to primary school are as follows:

– Liberia: 62%
– South Sudan: 59%
– Eritrea: 59%
– Afghanistan: 46%
– Sudan: 45%
– Djibouti: 43%
– Equatorial Guinea: 42%
– Niger: 38%
– Mali: 36%
– Nigeria: 34%

Education can protect children from trauma and physical danger
In May 2016, a crisis fund was launched at the World Humanitarian Summit to increase funding for children missing out on school due to war, conflict and natural disasters. Despite the fact that school equips children with the knowledge and skills they need to rebuild their communities once the crisis is over, protects them from trauma and physical dangers like prostitution, terrorism and sex slavery, and that classroom routines can help children recover psychologically after they have witnessed atrocities, education is one of the least funded sectors in humanitarian appeals, UNICEF said in a recent statement.

How LSL works
LSL World Initiative is a global organisation working in the socio-economic development and empowerment space. As such, it could help the governments of the countries concerned to find the revenue needed to send their children to school.

The funds for school subsidies are generated through micro-contributions in key globalised sectors—offering the best opportunities in terms of volumes and growth potential, such as mobile telecommunications, financial transactions, airline tickets, etc. There are a range of potential revenue-creating opportunities that could be explored.

Haiti finds the revenue for 1.4 million needy children to go to school
In fact, micro-contributions on telecommunications and money transfers into Haiti carried out by the millions of Haitians living abroad enabled the funding of a comprehensive free education programme for the country’s needy children, through exactly the same process—about 1.4 million children now attend school free of charge, and the elementary school attendance has risen from 55% to 90%.

Laurent Lamothe, founder-president of LSL World Initiative, was the driving force behind Haiti’s education initiative and LSL could help the countries mentioned in the UNICEF ranking to follow the Haitian example, while at the same time reducing their debt and their reliance on foreign aid.

A great number of untapped resources can be mobilised in this way. The monies come from abroad and there is little impact on local users and service providers. Harmless and microscopic contributions, levied on enormous volumes of transactions, create significant amounts of revenue in the sectors that benefit the most from globalisation. Every child deserves the opportunity to go to school. LSL could help these countries send their children to school in a secure, sustainable and effective way.