As part of activities to mark this year’s edition of the International Women’s Day (IWD), the United Kingdom , UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson has launched a new global partnership with UBA Foundation and 10 other organisations, to improve girls’ access to education and employment in developing countries.
To this end, the UBA Foundation, together with 10 other global businesses have come together with the UK government in partnership with UNICEF’s Generation Unlimited (GenU) to fund the programme that aims to provide high quality skills training to around one million girls around the world.
Businesses partnering to fund the the initiative to tune of £9m are Accenture, Standard Chartered, Unilever, Microsoft, Pearson, PwC, Coursera, Vodafone, BP and Cognizant. The UK government has contributed an initial £9m to the initiative called the Girls’ Education Skills Partnership programme.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who pointed out that this is UK’s first education partnership of its kind where the UK Government is joining forces with the private sector to boost girls’ access to education in developing countries, said, “The United Kingdom has long been a proud and mighty champion of this fundamental cause and today we take one leap further through our first Global Partnership of its kind – opening up opportunities for one million girls across the developing world to have access to high quality skills training.
The Group Chairman, United Bank for Africa(UBA), Mr Tony O. Elumelu, CON, who was in attendance at the event reiterated the importance of educating the girl child and giving back always as we strive towards sustainable development. “We understand first hand, the need to empower young women in African communities to catalyse sustainable socio economic development.”