OTTAWA – Canada’s development minister says the world must do more to educate children forced from their homes as it grapples with the epic level of humanitarian disaster unfolding across the globe.
Marie-Claude Bibeau tells The Canadian Press that too little of the already insufficient amount of global humanitarian assistance is being directed to educate these children.
And she says unless more money is spent on them, more children will lose out on education and become drawn to extremism, creating serious security threats.
WATCH: 500 refugees killed in disaster in the Mediterranean: UN
Bibeau was speaking from the first World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul on Monday, where she announced a $274 million Canadian contribution.
READ MORE: Refugee use of food banks could be ‘cultural,’ says John McCallum
The two-day gathering is a major effort address what the United Nations says is the highest level of humanitarian unrest in the world since the end of the Second World War.
Bibeau is Canada’s representative to the summit that is trying to find new ways of coping with the estimated 125 million people that require humanitarian assistance, including 60 million of them displaced from their homes.