"First of all, I want all of the young people and youth ambassadors to know that you can count on me to get to zero," said Donald Kaberuka, President of the African Development Bank, at the 2015 Countdown Summit on April 10, 2014 in Washington, DC.
President Kaberuka joined a high-powered group of global leaders, campaigners and celebrities, including United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, to get 57 million children into school and learning.
Africa has the largest number of out-of-school children in the world. In 2010, it was home to some 30 million out-of-school children, half of which were female. Nigeria alone is home to 9 million out-of-school children, followed by Ethiopia (2 million).
The 2015 Countdown Summit was organized by A World at School and designed as a dynamic event between global leaders and Global Youth Ambassadors focusing on the development of a strong, shared plan of action to strategically move the needle over the next two years to break down the barriers to access and learning for the most marginalized. The Global Youth Ambassador program was launched at the 2015 Global Education Countdown Summit with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to pressure the international community to take action on behalf of children across the world. Global Youth Ambassadors will have access to an extensive youth advocacy toolkit which has been developed in a partnership with A World at School, Plan and the Youth Advocacy Group of the Global Education First Initiative.
Five hundred young people from over 80 countries have been named as A World at School Global Youth Ambassadors. The inaugural group of 500 includes Shazia Ramzan and Kainat Riaz, who were students in the Swat Valley in Pakistan when they were injured on their school bus in the attack targeted at Malala Yousafzai.
The African Development Bank is strongly committed to education and skills development in Africa as highlighted in its Strategy for 2013-2022. Girls' education and women's empowerment are particularly important to accomplish the Bank's goal of inclusive economic transformation of the African continent.
