Bankers Before Children

  Education is a fundamental right for every child according to Article 28 of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child 

The report Fixing a Broken System: Transforming Education Financing by Save the Children revealed that 1 in 3 of the world's poorest nations spends more on paying off debt to wealthy countries and investors than on educating its own children.

It shows that 21 out of 70 low- and lower-middle-income countries with available data spent more on external debt repayment than on education in 2020.

 According to the publication, interest payments are expected to account for an average of 10% of the annual budget in this category of countries by 2024, up from 7% in 2015.

"Education systems desperately need more and better funding across low- and lower-middle-income countries. Instead, they are being gutted to service unmanageable debts," Hollie Warren, Save the Children U.K.'s head of global education policy and advocacy, said in a statement. "It is wrong that the world's poorest children are having to suffer because of a debt crisis that was not of their making," she continued. 

Nearly 1 in 3 children in low-income countries still do not finish primary school.

1 in 3 of World's Poorest Countries Spend More on Debt Repayments Than Education (commondreams.org)