- [Announcer] Production and distribution of City Club Forum on ideastream are made possible by the generous support of PNC and the United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland Incorporated.

(upbeat music) (bell rings) - Hello, and welcome to City Club of Cleveland where we are devoted to conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

I'm Dan Moulthrop, Chief Executive here, and a proud member.

Today is January 29th.

We are once again live from the studios of our public media partner, 90.3 WCPN Cleveland.

We're very grateful for their support and partnership.

The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirms education is a fundamental human right for everyone.

It's one of the most powerful tools in lifting socially excluded children and adults out of poverty and into the mainstream, and narrows the gender gap that often defines outcomes for girls and women.

And while humanity has made a great deal of progress in expanding educational access in recent decades, as you might imagine, COVID has led to some large challenges.

At one, point UNESCO estimated that 91% of the school-aged population around the world was actually not in school for the better part of 2020, 91%.

And while many American children will eventually return to school and in-person learning, that is not the case in other countries where education and especially the education of girls is not a high priority.

The failure to educate girls has both economic and social consequences, and that is our primary topic today with two experts committed to improving global education.

Let me introduce our Friday Forum speakers, Jennifer Rigg is the Executive Director of the Global Campaign for Education US, a coalition of over 80 organizations that promote access to quality education as a human right and mobilizes the public to create political will in the United States and internationally to ensure universal access to quality education worldwide.

She has more than 20 years of experience in international education and development policy, coalition-building, strategic communications and public management.

Also with us, Dr. Justin van Fleet, he's President of Theirworld, a global children's charity committed to ending the global education crisis.

He's also the Executive Director of the Global Business Coalition For Education, which began as an initiative of Theirworld, and focuses on bringing together the expertise and resources of the business community with the Campaign for Global Education.

Dr. Van Fleet's expertise is centered on education in developing countries, particularly the role of corporate social investments in philanthropic financing of education systems, as well as the dynamics influencing public-private partnerships.

I wanna mention too that today's forum is the Nathu Aggarwal and Roy Blackburn Forum established by City Club members Raj and Karen Aggarwal in honor of their fathers, big thanks to them.

If you have questions for either of our speakers though, text them to 330- 541-5794.

That's 330-541-5794.

Or you can tweet them at The City Club and we will work them into our program.

Jennifer Rigg, Justin van Fleet, welcome to City Club of Cleveland.

- Thank you so much.

- Thanks for having us.

- It is wonderful to have you.

Jennifer Rigg, is there a crisis in girls' education around the world today?

- [Jennifer] Absolutely there is.

So prior to COVID, approximately 130 million girls were already out of school before the pandemic even started.

And as you said, thank you for emphasizing that we're talking about all of school-aged children and the impact.

For anybody who has a young person at home who's learning through remote learning, we all know how disruptive it can be for the whole household, for the whole community as well for a young person not to have access to school.

But for their future, for girls and young women in particular, our partners at the Malala Fund estimate that as a result of the global pandemic, 20 million girls in developing countries may never return to the classroom.

It is absolutely critical that we all take action so that we can reverse that trend - And Justin van Fleet, how do you see it?

- [Justin] I fully agree with Jen.

This is the huge issue pre-COVID, over 100 million girls not in school around the world.

And as you mentioned, when COVID hit, 1.5 billion children had their lives flipped upside down when it came to their education.

And the biggest threat we have now to girls education are the poorest and most marginalized girls who may not return to school once this crisis is over.

And I think that's the biggest priority that we really need to put a focus on is that these young girls and young women who had education as their lifeline, the key to a better future, the key to unlocking that future are now at risk.

And we need to put all of our efforts into making sure that they get back into the classroom and create a brighter future, not just for themselves but their families and their communities - Justin van Fleet, I wonder if you could put this into a broader historical context for us.

What kind of progress was made in the second half of the 20th century with regard to this issue?

- [Justin] So in the year 2000, there was a thing called the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations, and every country joined on board and said, we wanna to make universal primary education a priority.

And overnight, governments changed policies.

School fees were eliminated, focus was on getting young girls and young boys into the classroom.

And between 2000 and 2010, over 100 million children who were out of school enrolled in school.

And then we saw the numbers sort of hover around 60 million, plus or minus, and it would go up a little bit, it would go down.

And what we found that was the most marginalized children that had yet to be reached, and these are children from the poorest households, children with disabilities, children in rural communities, children without access to technology.

And so with the new sustainable development of the UN, there's been a huge focus on trying to reach the most marginalized, especially girls, and get them into school.

And as we mentioned here, COVID has sort of put a halt on the progress we were making.

And now it's up to all of us, not to sort of step back but actually to ramp up our efforts on funding and policies that help kids go back to the safe classrooms.

- Jennifer Rigg, COVID's impact on this issue, should we think of it as a pause or a backslide?

- [Jennifer] Mm-hmm, great question.

Let's hope it's a pause and then we can really build back better.

I think it is, when we look at the data around what happened during the Ebola outbreak in Liberia, for example, 21% of primary school-age girls never returned back to school.

Now when we think about what are some of the barriers that are keeping girls out of school or causing them to not be able to continue?

Right?

Some of the impacts become amplified in the midst of a crisis, child marriage, poverty, distance to school, lack of safe access to toilets, to sanitation, to hygiene, the school fees that Justin just mentioned really absolutely are a huge barrier.

And oftentimes what we're finding is young women in particular are being called upon not only to take care of their younger siblings, but also becoming a breadwinner for the whole family.

So it's the way for us to make sure that it's only a pause and as brief as possible is to make sure that those supports are available for young women, for girls and their families, and that we together help to ensure that the systems post-COVID are even more resilient, so that anybody in any emergency setting has full access to quality inclusive education.

- Jennifer Rigg is Executive Director of the Global Campaign For Education United States.

Justin van Fleet is also with us.

He's President of Theirworld, Executive Director as well of the Global Business Coalition For Education.

If you have questions about the state of girls' education, the future of girls' education, and also just the state of education access around the world, text those questions to 330-541-5794 or tweet them at City Club and we will work it into the program.

This is "City Club Friday Forum", Justin van Fleet, looking at how this plays out in the United States, and is sort of a question for both of you, but we'll start with you.

How do we see... We know that the you were alluding earlier to the hardest to reach, the most marginalized children.

And we know that say here in Greater Cleveland, those are often children and families that are homelessness or facing a high degree of what's euphemistically referred to as mobility in the education field.

Who else are we talking about?

- [Justin] Yeah, I think that's a question, if you think of young person from an underserved community in the U.S. or a low-income family, going to school was the great equalizer, or had the potential to be a great equalizer.

And when COVID hit with all these children forced out of the classroom, it became a great divider.

Children, if you didn't have access to connectivity, if you had one device to share amongst several siblings, all of these factors made what was going to school much, much harder to have access to.

And because of that, the numbers that Jen sites of young girls not going back to school post-COVID, it's a real issue, not only around the world but also here in the U.S., child marriage, having to start work early.

All of those are things that happen here and also learning stopping because of lack of food on the table and all of these other ecosystem elements that help (laughing) a young person learn and thrive.

It's not just an issue in poor countries or rich countries.

It's an issue in all countries and all communities.

- Jennifer Rigg, how do you see the state of affairs in the United States with regard to this issue?

- [Jennifer] I absolutely agree.

One addition, in addition to families experiencing homelessness is we can see corollaries between what's happening locally, nationally and globally when we think about families that are migrating, are moving in some shape or form.

So globally, for example, refugee children are five times more likely to be out of school than non-refugees.

And so in the midst of what's happening during the pandemic, we know that any type of crisis or emergency is affecting young people, even it's being felt in a magnified way.

We're so grateful to teachers who are providing those types of supports, as well as all education support professionals, we know who are really going the extra mile especially right now when through remote learning lots of young people might not have any type of internet access, technology access.

That looks a little different in different locations across the U.S. from what it might look like in Guatemala, in Kenya, and Bangladesh, for example, but the basic human right to quality inclusive education is the same no matter where you might be located.

- I wanna return to what's happening with refugee children, both as they are sort of in their sort of refugee journey but also those who have been resettled here in the United States, but first Justin van Fleet, I'd like to ask you to kinda take a step back and make the case.

What is the... You work with a coalition of businesses to make the business case for this as an issue that they ought to invest in.

And I'd like you to share that please with our audience.

- [Justin] The case for girls' education at large is so impactful.

If we had every single girl in low and middle-income countries in secondary school, estimates show it boosts GDP 10%, that's a huge (laughing) increase in Gross Domestic Product of a country.

We're talking trillions of dollars.

This is not a small intervention.

There's also estimates that look at the impact of the gigatons of emissions that will be avoided due, and sort of help curb climate change if girls just had access to school.

So there are all of these broader societal interests at large that can be solved by girls' education, and businesses have a key interest in making sure that girls go to school.

This is the next generation of their workforce.

They want the best talent with the skills to be able to enter the workforce, create, innovate, create the next wave of innovations and solutions.

They also want consumers, and by every year of school a girl has, their income or the wages go up about 10 to 12%.

So a business has a self-interest in making sure girls go to school, both from the talent pipeline, and from the consumer pipeline.

But also it's a broader social call to action, and a lot of companies in our Global Business Coalition For Education put girls' education front and center, and more and more are starting to look at what they can do, whether it's their own internal policies, how they can be doing more public relations to promote the issue to their own philanthropy.

So it is an important issue that has huge, huge trillion dollar outcomes for society.

- Could you take a step back to the very first thing you said and unpack or connect all of the dots between investing in girls' education and a 10% increase in GDP?

- [Justin] The knock-on benefits of girls' education is tremendous.

If you just think of one young woman who goes to school who otherwise wouldn't go to school, her children are less likely to die before the age of five, she's much more likely to be literate and be able to read to her children which means the three to five children she has will also grow up and go to school, and it has this knock on economic and benefit in societies.

And so educating one girl is really a ripple effect that goes out.

It has economic and social consequences for health as well.

So it's not a small thing.

People think educating one girl, it (laughing) doesn't make a difference, but it impacts an entire society.

- Jennifer Rigg, I've been thinking a lot lately about the concept of the rights of future generations.

We often think of very short term gains and short-term investments, and the way Justin van Fleet describes this, it is about honoring the rights of future generations to achieve, to have economic opportunity.

- [Jennifer] Absolutely, starting today, and that's very true moving into future generations.

So at the Global Campaign For Education US, and with some of our partners around the globe, we work with youth leaders and youth advocates.

And it's so impressive to me how young people themselves are really leading on this issue.

Young women, young men really innately understand these connections, and the great thing too is when people of all ages reach out to their policymakers and speak up about how important the human right to quality inclusive education is, that's also what makes a difference for future generations.

In terms of the economic case that Justin just described so well, one piece that we find really makes a big difference especially when we're thinking about policies in the midst of a global crisis at the moment, each additional year of schooling that a young woman has access to can increase her earnings when that girl becomes an adult by 20%.

So as we look at ways to build even stronger gender equity and parity into the workforce, and then look at the impact down the road for her future family, each additional year of access to school makes a huge difference.

- I mentioned, you you all mentioned refugee children earlier and I said I wanted to come back to that issue.

Jennifer Rigg, at the moment, how are resettled refugees doing in the United States?

- [Jennifer] I think it really varies depending on where they might be located for access to education.

Many local school systems will really be working with refugee resettlement organizations.

Pre-COVID that was easier to do, right?

In terms of helping to connect in person.

So technology becomes critical.

And for a young person who maybe just went through the resettlement process, of course they might not have the same level of access to supports for English language learners and the like.

Being able to get that support learning in a language that you can understand is so vital.

As we know, refugee resettlement organizations often work with local communities.

And so local faith-based groups, organizations who often in the past have also helped to welcome and provide those types of supports for community building, and many volunteers, many people around the country are still doing that in a COVID-safe way, but it just becomes a little bit more challenging.

I think it allows for us to become more innovative in how we really reach refugee children.

- Justin van Fleet, what about the state of refugee children around the world?

- [Justin] Yeah, echoing what Jen said, it's really context-specific but we have some really great examples of communities stepping up to help refugee children get an education even despite the pandemic.

We have a Theirworld project in Lebanon, and our colleague Hiba who runs that.

When children weren't able to go to school, she was running an early childhood program for children with special needs, vulnerable Lebanese and refugee kids.

And she said, "Let's put these on the video.

"Let me WhatsApp these lessons out to mothers "so that they can actually... "when they're home with their young children "be able to engage in early childhood development."

And she said, "I think I can reach 18,000 families."

And I said, "That's huge let's go for it," and our project team worked with her, we launched this project.

Fast forward, she's surpassed over 100,000 families using these lessons.

There's an offer on the table from a Lebanese television station that was like, you should put these on TV because of the impact of these.

So it's an initial program that was for Lebanese or I'm sorry for refugee children from the Syria crisis, that actually is a huge knock on effect for local children of their own country.

So it's not just supporting refugee education, it can actually help local host populations.

We have similar work in Greece where we've all heard the terrible stories of the tens of thousands of refugees in the Greek islands and the mainlands and the horrible Maria fire that burned down 14,000 refugees homeless in November of last year.

And we've had programs where we're actually going out to the camps.

We have take-home packets and kids are eager to learn.

It's the number one priority of mothers and fathers is that their kids are in school, that they have the opportunity to create a better future.

And so our projects, it's a small part of that broader global effort to really bring education to every single child, even refugees.

- That WhatsApp story is extraordinary, Justin.

Does Facebook know?

Are they aware of it?

Have they offered to support it yet?

- [Justin] Hopefully after this program they will be aware of it.

(Justin laughs) They can give us a call.

- That's it, that is really, that's really intense.

That's wonderful.

Jennifer Rigg, where else are there promising stories of progress in this area?

- [Jennifer] Absolutely, thank you so much.

So we work closely with colleagues at Education Cannot Wait, which is hosted at UNICEF across the United Nations System where there's that keen focus on working with children in particular.

And Education Cannot Wait really helps to accelerate access for young people to education in any type of emergency setting.

And as soon as COVID hit, Yasmine Sherif, who heads up Education Cannot Wait and her team moved extremely fast to make sure that resources were deployed faster than ever before.

We know for example, that the access might look different in different locations, like Justin mentioned, and in some places, there might only be access to one radio for the entire community.

Some of our colleagues, for example, at Save The Children have found that in some nomadic populations, having some type of access to the books in local languages through camel libraries is what's working, to make sure that whatever it is, allows for the safe access at that local level.

That's where civil society organizations and international organizations and local partners are able to reach young people.

- Did you just say that the camel is the bookmobile?

- [Jennifer] Yes, exactly.

- That's amazing.

I would really love to see a picture of that.

We're talking with Jennifer Rigg.

She's the Executive Director of the Global Campaign For Education US, and Justin van Fleet, President of Theirworld and Executive Director of the Global Business Coalition For Education.

It's your "City Club Friday Forum", I'm Dan Moulthrop.

If you have questions for our guests, please text them to 330-541-5794.

That's 330-541-5794 to text your question, or if you're on Twitter, tweet it at Cit Club, and we'll work it into the program.

I've kind of a personal question for both of you.

The world of education is large.

There are great many needs in education, public and private education here in the United States.

I'm curious, what drew you both to this global work?

Jennifer, can we start with you?

- [Jennifer] Sure yeah, thanks for asking.

I come from a family of educators at all levels, and also grew up in the Civil Rights as well as the Women's Movements, literally protesting, joining marches and community meetings before I could walk or talk.

And I also was lucky to grow up with close family members who worked in Ethiopia, worked in Thailand, both on education and community development at large.

And then early in my career, when I worked for Care I was helping to build public policy and advocacy linkages of what was working to create systemic long-term change across countries, across communities and wonderfully had the chance to, for example, in working in Cambodia to engage with teachers who in post-conflict situations were literally holding school outside of an open community center or next to it, a large tree, whatever you could find, right?

As a way to convene young people.

So I have really found personally that linkage between access to education, is such a critical driver for helping to reduce all other types of inequities and helping young people for generations to come.

- Justin van Fleet.

- [Justin] So I grew up in rural Appalachian on the West Virginia, Maryland border.

And when I was in high school I always wanted to be an exchange student, to see something outside of own hometown.

And our home community came together and we did fundraisers and they really supported me.

And I went on an exchange to Bolivia of all places.

I had to get out of map, I had no idea where this was but I went from one mountain town to another mountain town on the top of the Andes.

And that was the first time, I was 16 at the time, where I went to school and saw young people my age who were child laborers, shining shoes, selling candies, selling cigarettes and not going to school.

And it really just struck me as it's such a vast inequity.

I grew up in an area which isn't the most well-off area of the U.S., rural Appalachian, but everybody's still for the most part had access to education.

And so when I came back that really stuck with me and that's sort of what I sort of set out on this human rights journey.

How do we make sure that everyone has the right to realize their potential?

And then as I got older, I realized it's not just a rich country, poor country issue.

It's an issue in the U.S., it's an issue in every other country across the world or even in my hometown today, I think 50% of young people aren't in early childhood education.

So there's so much work to do.

And I've always sort of been committed to the issue since I had that experience where I realized I sort of took for granted the fact that I went to school, and realizing that at such a young age was really shocking to myself.

- Justin van Fleet, I'd like to ask you what exactly some of the global corporations you're working with are doing.

How are they investing?

Where are they putting their time and their resources on this issue?

- [Justin] So it runs in the gamut and companies can, they have so many different assets and levers that they can pull to help support public education around the world.

It can be everything from their own philanthropy work that they do and funding good organizations that are doing quality work in their own communities to help kids go to school.

But we have a lot of other companies that are actually looking internally what is it that they're doing with their own human resources policies?

Do they have childcare policies for their employees' children?

What is their CEO out there saying?

Are they promoting social issues?

When they go and they have a meeting with a government that's about selling goods and services, so they actually bring up some of these other issues as well as part of that.

And how are they using their own employees and the products and services that they develop for social good?

So we have a lot of tech companies.

In the U.S. here we had HP and a few other companies came together and we made sure that we got technology in April out to underserved communities and cities in the U.S., so that young people that were forced out of school actually had devices to connect to the internet.

We had over 100 companies offer free and reduced fee services to school systems and teachers around the world to help support them in delivering education.

So there's a lot of goodwill out there but it's really moving from random acts of kindness to creating systems change and really getting companies to dig deep and really find out what they can do beyond just philanthropy to create change.

- We're talking with Justin van Fleet, he's President of Theirworld and ED, Executive Director of the Global Business Coalition For Education.

Jennifer Rigg is with us as well.

She's the Executive Director of the Global Campaign For Education US.

And they're both here to talk about the crisis in education access around the world, and specifically the crisis in education access for girls and they're making a case why that's worth investing in.

This is your "City Club Friday Forum".

I'm Daniel Moulthrop.

If you'd like to ask ask a question as part of our conversation, join the conversation now.

You can text your question to 330-541-5794.

The number again is 330-541-5794 to text your question, or you can tweet it if you're on Twitter, tweet it at The City Club and we will work it into the program.

First question for you both, how given everything that we've been discussing and the case you've made, how can you explain why there's so little attention to educating adolescent girls.

Jennifer Rigg.

- [Jennifer] Thank you for the question.

We really appreciate it.

And thanks for your engagement.

We agree that there shouldn't be this level of attention.

I think Malala's work has really helped to raise to new levels the interest in reaching girls and specifically girls' education.

And some of the other factors that that play into it is young women, especially as they get older, unfortunately might be invisible.

So as young women are dropping out of school to take care of their younger siblings or to get a job to support their family, people might not see this issue as much as other issues that you would see on a day-to-day basis, but it's absolutely critical I think in terms of helping to add more so that people can take even stronger action.

One of the things that we saw at the end of the congressional session is that in addition to looking at funding levels, there was really strong bi-partisan support across multiple members of Congress to really bolster the work that the U.S. government's doing on girl's education, especially in crisis and conflict settings.

And similarly there's a piece of legislation called the Girls' Leadership Engagement Agency and Development Act, or the Girls' LEAD Act, that really picked up steam and helps to recognize and promote girls' civic and political leadership as a priority including girls' education Justin van Fleet, there's a question here about, I'll just read it and we can discuss kind of how it works, but there's this whole issue brings up a whole lot of questions about gender imbalance and how boys and men operate in the world and how women, girls operate in the world.

But the question was this, I fully understand the value of bringing all children, especially girls into the education environment, but on a regional basis, in the United States where significantly more than 50% of college enrollment and graduates are now female, at what point do we either curtail preferential programs for female students or even reverse the preference in favor of males?

- [Justin] It's such a great question because part of the solution to girls' education is boys' education.

This is not just an issue of having access to a classroom.

It's an issue of discrimination.

It's an issue of equality.

It's an issue of cultural attitudes.

And while some communities may be more progressive or less progressive than others, unless boys and girls have equal access to education, that's the moment when we can start to have conversations about appreciation for one another, ending discrimination, working together, looking at unconscious bias that we may have against others, and so all of these issues are at play.

And so educating girls as the listener says isn't the only solution to girls' education.

We actually need to be educating boys as well.

- Jennifer Rigg, a sort of follow-on question to that has to do with if these investments in girls' education have such a huge impact, what's going on with the education of boys that it doesn't have the same impact?

- [Jennifer] Sure, thank you.

It's a great question.

And I think as Justin just said, transformative education for girls and boys is critical, right?

As a way to reverse the changes on equity.

I think numerically one of the things we're seeing at the global stage is because young women and girls don't have as much access, right?

When you crunch those numbers, you'll see even bigger adjustments there.

And another piece to that last question that the listener raised was around what happens once a young woman or a young man has access to education in terms of then equity for continued workforce access, leadership positions, are women of color getting that same level of access as well?

So I think part of the disparities that we're seeing have to do with racism, other types of inequities in addition to gender.

And we talked earlier about children with disabilities, right?

We know that young women with disabilities learning in a language that they don't speak at home in an emergency setting, there's such a disparity for that young person.

But on the flip side, we can absolutely reverse the trend so that young people of all backgrounds are able to really gain economically and educationally.

- Another question for you both from the City Club and Public Radio audience here, I endorse your goals in poor countries with enthusiasm, but how do you make that you're supporting national, public and private efforts in this direction and not imposing something from the outside?

Jennifer Rigg, could you start?

- [Jennifer] Sure.

Happy to.

So the Global Partnership for Education, which is housed at the World Bank, works hand in hand with national education systems to really build education sector plans that strengthen based on what's needed locally.

And there's always room for improvement to be sure but we've been very excited about the work that's been underway to absolutely build hand working in partnership with both national ministries of education all the way down to local levels.

As we know in the U.S., many times it really varies depending on what's happening with your local school board, with your local school system, and depending on the country, that's very similar.

So absolutely that's happening in partnership both regionally, nationally and locally - Justin van Fleet.

Yeah, and just to build onto that, the listener is absolutely correct.

Everything we do is in partnership with governments but also every single Theirworld project is co-created and then led by local organizations and partners.

And so we're very aware of that.

It's not about me sitting here in Long Island, New York, going into country X or community Y where I'm not from and coming up with a solution, but we're actually trying to help support, build capacity so that local problem solvers can actually come up with solutions and have all the tools at their disposal to really reach out and make an impact.

- Have you ever found yourself in a position where you're viewed with suspicion by a community that you're trying to get started helping?

- [Justin] Definitely.

Definitely.

And it's more, and I think maybe it's even the word help sort of sounds weird because for me it's more about having conversations.

I learned just as much if not more in all (laughing) of these projects.

The example of Hiba who's out there running this project in Lebanon, she's the rock star in this, not me.

We're just helping to create an enabling environment.

And I even think of even people that I work with day to day, and Jen brought up the issue of children with disabilities.

My one colleague (indistinct) she's from India, and she she has a visual impairment, and she still went to school and when it came time to take her exams to leave the classroom, they wouldn't let her use a screen reader, and so she obviously wouldn't be able to take this.

I said, you can't bring in external aids in to take your exam.

So she went and she fought and she protested and sat outside of the government (laughing) offices and they eventually let her use her screen reader to take it.

And I'm so glad they did because (indistinct) now works with us as our disability inclusion expert.

It is helping work on inclusive technologies to help other girls and boys around the world be able to have screen neuters and devices to access education.

And so it's that idea that young people that you pointed to Jen, and also people in their communities have the solutions and ideas.

And I see our role as simply working with them and helping provide additional tools to support them and build that up.

- It's an important lesson as well for local communities here in the U.S. seeking to, local organizations seeking to assist communities and create that enabling environment that you speak of.

Another question, is there any country in particular that's excelling at the education of girls?

And if so, what can others learn from those efforts?

Justin?

- [Justin] I'd say it's even greater than countries that are excelling.

It's really communities and programs that are making an impact.

I look at Pakistan and the program that we supported a few years ago around child marriage-free zones, and our colleague Bayla Jamil set up this area where it was about young girls if they were gonna be married off.

The boys and girls in the community would actually go and visit the family and try to encourage the family to not do that and to let the girl continue with their education.

And they had a huge impact.

I think around the world it's something like 23 young girls are married off every minute and pulled out of school.

And so it's an astonishing number.

And so that's one project that's also worked in Bangladesh and other countries around the world.

Cash transfers, so that poor families do send their kids to school.

They've worked throughout Latin America and India and other countries.

And then things like female teachers, role models, bathrooms, so the girls had their own bathroom.

All of these are things that work in different places around the world and have tremendous impact for very simple interventions.

- Can you go back a second and explain what you mean by cash transfers?

Are you talking about direct payment to families?

- Exactly, yeah.

So if families were to send their children to school as opposed to keeping them home to work or do other things, the family would actually receive a payment and sometimes it's the food stipend, sometimes it's a direct cash transfer to the family.

So it sort of, it serves as a financial incentive to keep children in school as opposed to pulling them out to work.

And it's been particularly effective in underserved and for low-income families around the world.

- Jennifer Rigg, are there particular communities or countries you'd like to lift up?

- Sure.

Thanks so much.

So across the Global Campaign for Education, we have colleagues that are active in over 100 countries.

And like Justin just said, the pieces that I'll add that we're seeing are specially working in girls' education as well.

And maybe I'll expand too on that on for disability inclusive education.

We're finding that some countries have been able to just recently pass new laws so that it's now legally allowed and in fact encouraged for adolescent girls after, they they might be pregnant, they might have a child, to be allowed to have access to school.

In some countries, that's still a barrier.

So when we're thinking about young women at all ages being able to have access to education.

And then what we're finding as well is UNESCO has a really impactful story on their website that everybody can access about a young woman in Afghanistan who in the midst of COVID is not able to access her school at all, has been out of school for over six months now.

But what is working is trying to find ways that she can continue her learning with a small group of other young women.

So we're seeing real leadership at local level from young women themselves to make sure that education can continue.

- Jennifer Rigg is the Executive Director of the Global Campaign for Education US Justin van Fleet is our other guest at your "City Club Friday Forum" today, he's president of Theirworld and Executive Director of the Global Business Coalition For Education.

This is "City Club Friday Forum", I'm Dan Moulthrop.

You can join with a text.

You can join with your question by texting it to 330-541-5794 That's 330-541-5794.

And you can also tweet it at City Club and we'll work it into the program.

How are the needs of homeless girls being addressed so they have a safe place to learn during COVID?

Jennifer Rigg.

- It's so critical, right?

We find that especially for any young woman experiencing homelessness, that's a real barrier.

I think it does vary depending on the local context that you're in.

So for example, if that young woman has access to a shelter for example, the school system that I'm in and just outside of Washington, D.C. in Maryland, there is a local law making sure that all young people experiencing homelessness should have the same access to education.

But unfortunately in reality, it varies depending on what can be provided.

Some efforts like through communities and schools can also make a big difference.

So making sure that in the midst of COVID, this is through virtual school potentially, but that supports engagement with school-based social workers and mental health providers as well as community connectors to make sure that that young woman has access to the supports that she needs so that she can continue her schooling becomes so critical.

- I wanna ask both of you, what do you think the really big bets are that we ought to be taking?

There was this moment about 10 months ago when the world sort of shut down economically because because of COVID.

And a lot of people started thinking, wow, this is a moment that offers extraordinary opportunity to rethink how we do everything.

And if that moment, if that wasn't a mirage and we could rethink how we do everything, what are the things that we ought to be doing right now so that six months from now, 12 months from now when the pandemic is in the rear-view mirror, Inshallah, that we are actually that things are different.

- [Jennifer] Yes.

- Jennifer Rigg.

- [Jennifer] Great question.

First, early childhood education and play-based access to early childhood development that looks different in the midst of COVIDs as we get through this crisis, it will become the access can continue, right?

And this gives us the opportunity to really make sure that right from the start, young children, their caregivers, their entire support networks have access to early learning.

We know that education early has to be linked to supports for health, for nutrition, for access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene as well, for example.

So Justin alluded to it earlier, but that is the one of the biggest bets that we know, the research is so solid.

We know that inclusive early learning makes a huge difference.

When it comes to helping to overcome barriers for girls, for children with disabilities, we can't wait until they reach what would be school age.

We can't wait until age five, six or seven, that's too late.

And we know that the earlier we can start those interventions and those supports, the better.

The other thing I would say is fully mainstreamed inclusive school settings.

So making sure that girls, that children with disabilities, that young learners get that support that they need in an inclusive way with the support that and the teachers are able to get the full support and the training, not only at the beginning of their careers, but in an ongoing way.

And then building that equity from the start is really critical.

This year in particular, we know that girls' education is likely to be on the agenda at the G7 Summit hosted by the U.K. government.

And then right after that, the Global Partnership for Education will be holding a large Global Education Summit with Replenishment.

So the opportunities are there.

Obviously let's not wait until until July but take action now.

But the opportunities are there to build even stronger partnerships and investment to reach more girls around the world.

- Justin van Fleet.

- [Justin] First of all, I'm so happy that Jen brought up early childhood education.

There's one thing that we need to get right in this country and across the world, it's investing in children zero to five.

90% of a kid's brain is fully formed by the age of five.

And the fact that we wait and invest most in the education after the age of five and the (laughing) development after the age of five is shocking to me.

And if you take what the U.S. and the World Bank and UNICEF and all of the international agencies combined contribute to the poorest kid in the poorest country for the early years, it adds up to 26 cents per child per year compared to the thousands of dollars we invest in young people in our own communities here in the U.S. And so if you wanna talk about inequities and you wanna talk about inequality, it starts at birth.

And that's the number one biggest bet.

So, Jen, thanks for bringing that up.

And I think the other part is teachers.

I don't know one parent who has not had a more profound appreciation for teachers after trying to homeschool their own children than (laughing) parents over the past year.

And so I think really looking at how do we provide support for teachers?

How do we invest more in teachers?

Because they really are the frontline workers.

And then investment.

The projections show that most governments in the U.S. and around the world, their education budgets are gonna go down about 8% over the next year because of the impact of the Coronavirus on economic growth.

Education is on the chopping block.

There'll be funding put into job creation, funding put into health response.

Education needs to be right up there because of all the reasons we talked about.

It needs to be part of the stimulus package.

And there are all of these organizations around the world.

This issue is so big, it's greater than any one organization or institution.

So we need a big global stimulus focused on funding education and leading up to these big summits, the G7 and all these others.

There's another program, the International Finance Facility for Education which will inject 5 billion into education around the world.

The U.K. supports that, the Netherlands had put money into it.

The U.S. is empty, not at the table.

So there's a real need for U.S. leadership in the U.S. and around the world on education issues.

- One of the lessons of COVID is that the school facility, the building itself isn't as indispensable as perhaps we thought it was.

And I wonder if either of you have thoughts about if you were going to reinvent public education, what it might look like or what lessons we might carry forward in an newly designed education system.

- [Justin] It's such an awesome question.

It remind us to be completely creative because it's this hybrid environment.

We need to embrace technology and we need to build it infrastructure, but we also need that human connection with others, and Jenny, your play-based learning, we need to have fun.

Learning needs to be relevant, but there's also all of these other support systems from having food and nutrition to having a health worker in the schools and classrooms.

We can create a whole ecosystem for success here.

It's not rocket science.

We know what makes a quality education, and it's whether or not we wanna do it.

I think that's the real question in my mind.

- Jennifer Rigg.

- [Jennifer] Yeah, I absolutely agree.

And I think also as we stronger public education systems for everybody to have access, reducing those barriers become critical.

So thinking about how there's support built in from the beginning for early childhood education, not just an add-on for our younger audiences before kindergarten or first grade, and then making sure that we have some legal frameworks across the U.S. in terms of reaching all children with disabilities, but there's so much more around the globe to be done to make sure that that schools are built fully in a much more integrated, inclusive way.

And that's thinking about the access point, but it's also thinking about the barriers for young people to safely get to the school.

And then thinking about health clinics, access to full psycho-social, emotional learning supports within that school setting becomes critical as well.

I think when we think of, to finally build more resilience for any future shocks or emergencies, the other thing that we can think about is helping to ensure that there's low technology, adaptive technology that's appropriately supported so that teachers have that support that they need so that if in the future, people can't come physically to a school, we have those backup plans ready to go and students can continue learning no matter what might come up - Related audience question for you both to that final point.

Do you think that the shift to online and remote learning will ultimately help or hurt your current efforts to educate girls around the world?

- [Justin] I think it can help and I think it can hurt.

I think it opens up this whole new window.

The thing is you don't necessarily have to go to school to learn something.

If I wanna do something, I can look on YouTube and figure out how to fix a window in my house or (laughs) learn whatever other skill I might need.

And so there is an opportunity to really use digital technology to enhance learning.

It's not a bad thing, but again, it's not the only thing that we need, and we need to be creative and we really need to look at how we can use it as a force for good.

- Jennifer Rigg, in the United States during COVID, nearly all the jobs that were lost last quarter were jobs held by women.

Education's obviously important, but women are still at risk for job loss and economic insecurity.

How do we remedy that?

- [Jennifer] So childcare and early childhood supports are so vital as well as that type of support system and childcare access throughout a young person's life.

I think, and Justin could speak to this, but companies and employers are starting to look at what types of new supports can we all be offering for employees so that there's an increased equitable recognition of how to help make sure that people can continue working, they can have that balance they need and support their kids and their families at the same time?

I think the other pieces here, we talked about this earlier, but the more we look at girls' education and access for all children to transformative education, to really break down equity barriers, and that helps us to create that transformation that's needed ultimately in the workplace as well.

- We began this conversation talking about the state of affairs around the world and talked also about the trends over the last few decades and the progress that has been made.

Ultimately, do you two believe this is a solvable problem or is that the wrong way to think about it?

And what is success?

What does that ultimately wind up looking like?

Justin van Fleet, why don't you start?

- [Justin] Success is what any young person, it doesn't matter your race, your income level, that you have a ladder for opportunity.

You have a way to unleash your potential.

That's what success is.

And the thing that, sometimes we throw these numbers out there, and it seems like such a big challenge that's in front of us.

But again, I go back to the point, it's such a simple solution.

We know what works in education.

It's not rocket science.

If you have a meal, if you have a teacher that wants to really work with you, if you have young people, you have technology, all of these things around, you can survive.

You can thrive, you can build a better future through education.

It doesn't require, some of these numbers sound huge.

They're not that big compared to the other things we put money in around the world and our own country.

It's a small investment with huge impacts.

And so for me, it's a no-brainer.

- Jennifer Rigg.

- [Jennifer] I agree, absolutely success is possible.

And in fact it's not an option, right?

We have to make sure that every young person has access to quality inclusive education.

It's the critical link that will help to make sure that then when we look at COVID-19 for example, that education is vital so that then future frontline health workers get that training that they need to be able to support and help people through a crisis like this in the future.

It's also vital for helping to make sure that the new generations of leaders get that early education and that support throughout their careers that they need to lead from local to global levels.

- Finally, in sort of 30 seconds or less, how can people help if they wanna get involved?

- [Justin] If you wanna get involved with us, go to theirworld.org, sign up for our newsletter.

Every week, you'll get some news about what we're up to and how you can engage.

If you're a young person, you can be part of our campaigners, join our Global Youth Ambassador Program.

And if you're a business, get in touch, we wanna have you as part of our coalition working to end the global education crisis.

- [Dan] Jen Rigg.

- [Jennifer] Thanks so much.

So please, similarly for the Global Campaign for Education US, go to our website at gce-us.org.

People of all ages are invited to subscribe to get involved.

We make it easy for you to also contact your policymakers.

We have an action that's active right now on the COVID supplemental funding and appropriations at the national and global levels.

And so it literally takes less than 30 seconds to reach out to your members of Congress.

So taking action, joining, taking those 30 seconds even once a month can have a huge impact to help girls around the world.

- Jen Rigg is the Executive Director of the Global Campaign For Education US, Justin van Fleet, President of Theirworld and Executive Director of the Global Business Coalition for Education.

Thank you both for being part of our City Club Friday Forum today.

We really appreciate it.

- [Justin] Thanks so much.

- [Jennifer] Thank you for having us.

- Our forum today is the Nathu Aggarwal and Roy Blackburn Forum established in memory of Mr. Aggarwal and Mr. Blackburn who set inspiring examples and exhibited lifelong commitment to education, in particular women's and girls' education.

We're grateful for the support of City Club member Raj Aggarwal and his family in establishing this forum.

Thanks also to member sponsors and donors and others who support our mission to create conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

We have four such conversations coming up next week.

Tuesday night, our happy dog takes on the world series, takes on the topic of coup of the coups, of coups rather, and the fragility of democracies around the world.

Wednesday, a look at new decision-making criteria being used in transportation planning in our region.

Thursday, a full hour on the COVID vaccines.

We will bust a few myths and get you some solid, dependable, truthful, factual information.

And next Friday, we're back here talking about the state of equity in higher education.

Spoiler, we have a lot of work to do.

You can find out more and see what else is coming up at cityclub.org, and you can check out what you missed there or on PBS, passport, Roku, Amazon Fire Stick, Vimeo and of course our YouTube channel.

Also the 11th and final episode of "Democracy Unchained" was released last night, we take a step back and look at the big picture of how to make democracy work better for everyone and for future generations.

Check it out, democracyunchained.io.

I'm Dan Moulthrop, stay strong, stay healthy, please wash your hand, please keep your distance, keep wearing a mask, maybe two, if you need to.

And if you get a chance to get a vaccine, please take that chance.

Our forum is now adjourned.

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