The Road to the SDGs

diverse stages of development and varying degrees of achievement of education-related SDGs and that IsDB interventions will therefore take an integrated and holistic approach based on analysis and dialogue with each MC. X The principles on which the policy is founded are as follows: – Build foundations for human development — Expanding basic education provision to cater for out-of-school and refugee children, rebuilding school systems in conflict-affected and fragile states – Enhance human development — Investing in centres of excellence in universities and technical and vocational education and training institutes, and in innovative science and technology initiatives – Cultivate value-added partnerships — Strengthening IsDB’s involvement with the global community in order to play a more prominent role in the aid architecture for education – Optimise education financing — Using an innovative basket of flexible options to help minimise MCs’ financial dependency on donor resources. POTENTIAL IMPACTS X The policy enables the achievement of IsDB’s goals for the sector through the following three policy pillars: – Enhanced provision of basic education — Encompassing interventions in early childhood care and development, primary education, and literacy and non- formal education; supporting investments, including microfinancing, in non-formal education that targets functional and vocational literacy – Post-basic education provision — Including support to upper secondary education, technical and vocational education and training, and tertiary/higher education; helping to expand and diversify upper secondary education – Advocacy and advisory services — Encouraging the enrolment of disadvantaged children into early childhood education programmes; ensuring equitable access to resource allocations; including parallel provisions for education (formal and Islamic); promoting youth empowerment; and ensuring gender equity. INVESTMENT IsDB has been a major contributor to education in its MCs, with investments of over US$ 3.8 billion, second only to the total amount invested in these countries by the World Bank Group. X In future, IsDB will pursue three levels of investment to address learning for human development: – Imperative investments, which involve areas for which IsDB will take responsibility and be accountable. These are projects and programmes for learning that build the fundamentals of human development. They constitute a niche area that defines what IsDB stands for in education – Desirable investments, which are interventions that IsDB will collaborate in, or support, for the enhancement of human development – Laudable investments, which are important activities that IsDB will advocate, or provide advisory services to, without investing major financial resources. E D U C A T I O N S E C T O R P O L I C Y The policy is guided by the Islamic teaching that seeking knowledge is mandatory for everybody, and the injunction that all children be accorded the right to live and thrive to their fullest potential [ 35 ] T H E R O A D T O T H E S D G s | P R O G R E S S A N D A C H I E V E M E N T S