Former prime minister Gordon Brown has challenged world leaders and business tycoons to donate 250 million US dollars (£177 million) in the next two weeks to help educate Syrian refugee children.
Some 500 million dollars (£354 million) has already been raised towards the overall target of 750 million dollars (£531 million) but the former premier has called for a rapid response to reach the total in order to fund a million school places for children forced to flee the conflict in Syria.
Making his appeal at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Mr Brown said it was the greatest humanitarian crisis since the Second World War but indicated that improved education for refugees in the region could ease the crisis of migrants risking “death voyages” to Europe.
Mr Brown, the United Nations global education envoy, wants the money to be raised before the international conference on Syria being held in London on February 4.
The young refugees are scattered throughout Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan but have been offered hope from a double-shift schooling system where they attend classes in late afternoons and evenings after local children have completed their school day.
Mr Brown said: “Today the greatest humanitarian crisis since 1945 demands the boldest of responses from the broadest coalition of public, private and voluntary funding.”
Half of the 500 million dollars committed so far comes from the EU and within the region, both public and private money, 200 million dollars is a loan offer from the World Bank and 50 million dollars has come from businesses.
But warning that additional money was needed to fund the school places for 2016 he said: “There are good reasons why we must act urgently – Syria’s refugee children must not become a lost generation. The average time out of a country for a refugee is well over a decade. If we do nothing, then thousands of refugee children may reach adulthood without ever enjoying even a first day at school.
“And as more and more girls and boys pitch up on the streets of Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, disturbing new statistics show rates of child marriage among refugee girls have doubled in some refugee camps and child labour among out-of-school boys and girls is rapidly worsening.
“One recent survey estimates one in three boys and girls displaced from their home country have become labourers, often working illegally in unsafe conditions.
“And it’s well established that without the provision of education, parents see no choice but to leave the region and embark on what have become death voyages to Europe.
“It’s also well known that the offer of education is the most important factor in giving previously demoralised young people hope; hope that there is a future worth preparing for.
“So there is no solution to the exodus to Europe without an expansion of education.”
“No solution to the rising numbers of child marriages and the exploitation of children forced into illegal labour, without the expansion of education.
“And no solution to the rising discontent among refugees in the region without the expansion of education.
“I call on the international community to respond”.