Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development of the House of Commons for having us here today with our colleagues and friends in the education sector.
It is a very important consultation, and I am glad to be here, together with my colleague, Maha Khochen. We can also respond to any questions. Maha will be the expert on any additional questions.
First of all, I would like to thank Canada as a founding member of Education Cannot Wait.
The ultimate question is, what is Education Cannot Wait? We are a global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises. We are situated in the United Nations, and we work across the UN system. We are hosted by UNICEF, but work with all UN agencies. We work very closely with civil society organizations—Jennifer Rigg, of course, represents the global coalition—and together with education ministers, the private sector and strategic donor governments.
Canada was one of the founders of Education Cannot Wait at the World Humanitarian Summit and has also contributed generously. At our high-level financing conference earlier this year in Geneva, Switzerland, Canada pledged an additional $87 million over four years to Education Cannot Wait in our strategic plan for 2023-26.
The funding we received for the coming four years is targeting 20 million crisis-affected children, especially girls and adolescent girls who live in countries that are very hard to reach, fragile and affected by crisis- and climate-induced disasters and refugees. Canada has played an instrumental role in most of our interventions, but I would highlight also that additional contributions have been made to our investment in Bangladesh for the Rohingya refugees—to refugees and host communities, where we are reaching more than 350,000 children and adolescents.
When it comes to disability inclusion in education in emergencies, our approach is fully aligned with Global Affairs Canada's commitment to disability-inclusive education in line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. We also welcome the global leadership that Canada showed during the G7 in Charlevoix, where, again, the Charlevoix declaration stated that girls with disabilities are especially marginalized and require particular attention.
What are we doing?
First of all, before going into Education Cannot Wait's work in the global south, let me mention that the World Health Organization estimates that 16% of the world population is experiencing significant disability. This is very interesting. Please remember this: 80% of them are in the global south, and many of them live exactly and precisely in emergency and protracted crisis situations.
Education Cannot Wait is a global fund that looks for learning outcomes and equality and also to make everyone work together, coordinated and jointly, rather than in silos, which has enabled us to successfully reach nine million children and adolescents in the hardest-hit parts of the world with a quality education. We address emergency response first, as well as long-term development investments.
We are committed to reaching 10% of children with disabilities. We have increased our budgetary allocation to reach children with disabilities to at least 5% of every program. You can see the kind of work we do with local organizations in Iraq and Colombia, to mention just a few. So far, we have reached over 100,000 children, who then receive Braille typewriters, sign language interpretation, long canes and infrastructure that will enable them to go to school. There is action, and there are results.
I have four seconds left. I will thank you once more.
Thank you very much.