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Leonardo Garnier outlines the early wins as well as challenges towards achieving the Education 2030 Agenda, such as the political barriers and insufficient investment in education.

This article is part of the Key Learnings for Education 2030 series written by the SDG4 High-Level Steering Committee (HLSC)'s Inter-Agency Secretariat. In this series, we speak with the outgoing leaders of the HLSC about the strides that were made towards achieving SDG4 and draw inspiration from them on how to further advance the work for education transformation.

We had the opportunity to sit down for an interview with Leonardo Garnier, former Special Adviser to the Secretary-General of the United Nations for the Transforming Education Summit (TES). He has also served as Minister of Education (2006-2014) and Minister of National Planning and Economic Policy (1994-1998) in Costa Rica. He shared with us powerful insights on the global education cooperation work under way to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4).  

To begin with, the Transforming Education Summit convened in September 2022 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York was organized in response to the global crisis in education, which is a crisis of equity and inclusion, quality and relevance. Often slow and unnoticed, this crisis is having a devastating impact on the future of children and youth around the world. To tackle this issue, Leonardo Garnier highlights the key role of the Summit and how important commitments were reached based on the recognition of the global learning crisis. 

In particular, he highlights the outcomes and follow-up actions established at the TES, pointing out how the role of the SDG4 High-Level Steering Committee (HLSC), hosted by UNESCO, is key in this journey. Specifically, Leonardo Garnier remarks that the HLSC is crucial for overseeing the implementation and follow-up of all the commitments made during the Summit. In his view, this global body is essential for driving progress in the transformation of education. 

However, he is concerned about the difficulties in implementing such efforts. As he states, there is a challenge in translating awareness and agreement into concrete actions, primarily due to political barriers and, more importantly, inadequate investment in education. Reportedly alarming, in 2021, public spending on education declined by 13.5% compared to 2020. Therefore, the significant contractions observed in public spending on education are contributing to further aggravate the learning crisis. 

In conclusion, Leonardo Garnier underlines the importance of ensuring that education transformation initiatives effectively reach and impact classrooms and emphasizes the need for tangible results through the global education reform agenda.  

URL: https://www.unesco.org/sdg4education2030/en/articles/leonardo-garnier-former-special-adviser-transforming-education-summit-shares-his-views-achieving