Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Jimoh Ibrahim, has urged the international community to adopt a global debt-for-education swap framework that would allow developing countries to invest more in education while continuing to meet their debt obligations.

According to a statement issued by his media office in New York, Ibrahim made the proposal at the UNESCO Conference on System Transformation and Resilience for Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) in Paris, France, where ministers, development partners, multilateral institutions and education stakeholders met to discuss sustainable financing for quality education.

Speaking at the conference, the envoy said the rising debt burden on developing countries was steadily reducing investments in education, as governments were increasingly compelled to devote scarce resources to debt servicing rather than building schools, recruiting teachers, expanding access to learning and improving educational infrastructure.

He said many developing nations now spend more on servicing debt than on education, describing the trend as a major threat to the attainment of SDG 4, which seeks to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all.

Ibrahim said no fewer than 113 countries, with a combined population of more than six billion people, were affected by the worsening debt crisis, significantly limiting their capacity to invest in human capital development.

He also expressed concern over declining development assistance from advanced economies, noting that reduced global education financing had compounded the difficulties facing low- and middle-income countries seeking to strengthen their education systems.

To address the challenge, Ibrahim proposed a debt-for-education swap that would allow debtor countries to continue repaying the principal component of their loans while suspending interest payments.

He said the suspended interest should instead be redirected to education projects and the strengthening of national education systems.

According to him, such a model would provide countries like Nigeria with the fiscal space to rehabilitate schools, modernise universities, expand digital learning infrastructure, promote research and innovation, and improve access to quality education without defaulting on existing debt commitments.

He warned that with some countries committing as much as 70 per cent of government revenues to debt servicing, meaningful progress towards achieving SDG 4 would remain difficult unless innovative financing mechanisms were adopted.

“The world cannot continue to mortgage the future of our children to service debt. We must create a new global financing model that allows nations to honour their debt obligations while investing in education.”/>

“Suspending interest payments and redirecting them to schools, universities and learning infrastructure is a practical pathway to achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4,” he said.

Ibrahim added that education remained the most sustainable investment any nation could make and argued that redirecting resources currently spent on debt interest into classrooms, research, innovation and skills development would help create more prosperous, resilient and peaceful societies.

The conference reviewed global progress towards SDG 4 and examined innovative approaches to financing education.

According to the statement, UNESCO has warned that 113 countries now spend more on debt servicing than on education, while global development assistance for education is projected to decline significantly between 2023 and 2027, further widening the financing gap facing developing nations.