Nigeria and 49 other countries globally, including Ghana, are to benefit from a $1.8 billion fund of the Education Above All (EAA).

The funding support is for the EAA’s Educate A Child (EAC) programme targeted at out of school children globally.

Giving the hint on the readiness of the EAA Foundation to provide the fund in support of out-of-school children in New York, United States of America, the founder, Sheikha Moza Bint Nasser, said that the programme was targeting 10 million out-of-school children in Nigeria, Ghana and other countries.

Moza, who is also a United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) advocate announced alongside other partners, that 10 million out of school children in some of the most challenging situations around the world, would receive quality primary education through the fund.

She said: “We did not achieve this remarkable goal by snapping our fingers or by just writing cheques.

“I have watched as schools were built from scratch… I have listened to lessons taught under the shade of a tree. The desire to learn is one of the most powerful forces of human nature is in every child. Helping children fulfil that innate desire is the responsibility of us all”, Moza said.

Moza appealed to more partners to scale up EAC’s successful formula as “the world is not a safe place, yet, adding that millions of children are still waiting and in desperate need of our help.

“Let’s work together to ensure a better future for all of them and for the world we share. Believe me, it is possible,” she appealed.

At the event held at the Public Library, New York which had many world leaders in attendance, the United Nations Secretary-General, Mr. António Guterres, harped on the importance of education and its role toward realizing the collective dream for a sustainable future.

He said: “Our dream of a sustainable future cannot be realized if we do not support children’s dreams to gain an education.

“When we educate a child we give her more than books, papers, pencils or a calculator. We give her the tools, skills and imagination she needs to shape the world around her and to make her community, and her society, better, more prosperous and more peaceful”, the UN scribe added.

EAA’s Educate A Child programme has over 80 global partners. It is operating with 42 of them in 50 countries to tackle the barriers to education and close the gap on the 63 million out of school children.

With a total of over $1.8 billion already invested to meet the target, EAC has enrolled over six million children in areas worse hit by poverty, discrimination, natural disaster, and conflict.

Securing commitments to reach 10 million fulfils Moza’s 2012 promise and demonstrates that progress is possible, even amid the worsening education crisis it is understood.

EAC works with children, their families, communities, governments and partners, to identify barriers to education and support children to overcome them. The successful partnership approach allows for EAC to take local knowledge and expertise from the community itself and scale it up using multi-sector solutions.

Over time, the EAC has focused on enrolling hard to reach marginalised children, children living in crisis and conflict-affected environments, children in poverty, or those who are contending with social or cultural barriers to education, and.

Currently, some of the successful programmes being implemented by the Foundation include, children living in rural remote areas far from school buildings.