Global Leaders join Her Highness Sheikha Moza to warn of threat to the vision of the SDGs 2030
Her Highness Sheikha Moza addressing attendees at the Law, Education and the SDGs seminar at The Hague Institute for Global Justice
Frank Van Beek
At a Distinguished Speaker Series seminar at The Hague Institute for Global Justice, three SDG Advocates spoke with one voice, warning that current levels of conflict and humanitarian crisis pose a grave threat to the Sustainable Development Goals 2030. They urged the United Nations leadership and the G20 to do more to:
- Strengthen the current global governance system, which is failing to protect education in conflict and to prevent targeted attacks on children, teachers and schools
- Advocate for more effective mechanisms to hold those responsible for attacks on children, teachers and schools to account
- Invest in quality education as a vital tool in post-conflict recovery, to ensure sustainable peace.
Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser led the initiative, delivering an address as UN Sustainable Development Advocate and Founder of the Education Above All Foundation.
Her Highness’ full speech can be accessed here.
In her remarks, she urged the world to recognise the ‘human horror’ and ‘lifelong trauma’ inflicted on millions of children when education is attacked and schools are destroyed:
“A child’s future takes years to build. But when conflict breaks out, and when a school is bombed, it is not only bricks that crumble. For bricks can be replaced. What can never be replaced is the hearts and futures of children.”
“So when you see on your screens the horrors of war, the destruction of schools, please, look beyond the piles of bricks. See children who no longer fill those classrooms. See children who are left on the streets. Imagine their trauma, their anger, their sense of injustice.”
Her Highness was joined at the seminar by:
- Her Excellency Fatou Bensouda, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court
- Graça Machel, Founder and President of the Foundation for Community Development (FDC) and Founder of the Graça Machel Trust
- Forest Whitaker, Founder and CEO of the Whitaker Peace & Development Initiative (WPDI), UNESCO Special Envoy for Peace and UN SDG Advocate
- Kevin Watkins, CEO of Save The Children UK
- Laila Bokhari, Norway’s State Secretary
Her Highness’s Distinguished Address marks the start of a three year advocacy programme that assembles the leading figures across the spheres of humanitarian emergency, international law and the development sector to build innovative ways of strengthening global justice, ensuring accountability for crimes against education and protecting the right to education even during war, conflict and insecurity.
Her Highness Sheikha Moza, Graça Machal and Forest Whitaker signed a letter that was published today in The Times, urging the world leaders to demonstrate renewed global commitment to education as a means of delivering sustainable development, at the forthcoming G20 meetings:
Sir, War is preventing 25 million young people worldwide from going to school. This unprecedented level of conflict has now reached crisis point. We must take action to protect education and hold those who attack children, teachers and schools to account. At present, powerful countries are not accountable, and too often narrow political interested override the needs of the most vulnerable. Today an event at The Hague Institute for Global Justice will bring together leaders committed to building a stronger system of global governance to protect schools in conflict. Moreover, the forthcoming G20 meetings provide an opportunity for world leaders to demonstrate they are both accountable and responsible in the pursuit of peace. They offer a chance for a renewed global commitment to education as a means of delivering sustainable development. This opportunity must not be missed.
HER HIGHNESS SHEIKHA MOZA BINT NASSER (Education Above All); GRACA MACHEL (Machel Foundation); FOREST WHITAKER (Whitaker Peace and Development Initative)
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