Mohamed M. Malick Fall was appointed because the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Nigeria in February 2024. He has greater than 20 years of expertise within the improvement, humanitarian and peacebuilding fields. Previous to his appointment, he served because the UNICEF Regional Director for Jap and Southern Africa, the place he supplied oversight and steerage to 21 UNICEF Nations Workplaces, together with on the formulation and implementation of the Nation Programme Paperwork, the UN Reform course of, and the engagement with the Regional and Financial Fee and African Union and the personal sector.
Moreover, Mr. Fall has led the response to a number of and complicated crises with large humanitarian wants and excessive safety challenges, and managed the strategic overview of the nation paperwork, analysis and knowledge-management-related actions, making certain that the outcomes are used to tell programmes and insurance policies.
Earlier than that, he served as UNICEF Consultant in Nigeria (2016–2019), Central African Republic (2014–2016) and Mongolia (2012–2014), because the Senior Training Adviser in Haiti (2010–2012), and as Chief of Training in Indonesia (2006–2010) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (2003–2006). He was additionally quickly assigned as Training Officer (2001–2003).
Mohamed M. Malick Fall has a Grasp’s diploma in Demography from Université de Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne in France and a B.A. Diploma in Historical past (Licence d’Histoire) from Université de Dakar in Sénégal.
ECW: As we speak, there are 18.3 million kids out of faculty in Nigeria. How can related organizations – UN businesses, civil society organizations and ECW – work higher along with nationwide/state/native governments to get these ladies and boys into protected and protecting studying environments?
Mohamed M. Malick Fall: Given the size of the variety of kids which can be out of faculty, constructing partnerships (in addition to strengthening current partnerships) at nationwide, state and native stage is likely one of the methods to help out-of-school kids (OOSC) to get again to high school or into different studying pathways. No single actor can handle this problem alone – it requires collective management, assets and innovation to handle this profound problem. Along with the Ministry of Training, UN businesses, civil society organizations, and non secular and faith-based leaders, ECW should align their help with nationwide schooling priorities. This fashion, interventions don’t create parallel methods however as an alternative strengthen and reinforce current schooling constructions.
Strengthening collaboration and leveraging assets is crucial to reaching a clearly communicated aim of lowering the variety of OOSC. The training atmosphere have to be protected and conducive to encourage attendance and studying. Therefore, making certain that the training atmosphere is free from all types of abuse and violence, offering inclusive school rooms for learners with disabilities, and equipping lecturers with requisite expertise and information to help learners as want arises. The UN with ECW has demonstrated this by way of a Multi-Yr Resilience Programme – which has introduced collectively completely different INGOs and native NGOs, beneath the management of the three state governments, Borno, Adamawa and Yobe (BAY). This partnership resulted in about 200,000 kids benefiting from varied interventions. As well as, over 130,000 kids within the BAY states will profit from ECW-supported interventions. ECW, by way of its First Emergency Response, can be supporting over 100,000 girls and boys in insecurity inclined areas of Northwest Nigeria to proceed accessing formal and non-formal schooling in protected areas. ECW’s method of working by way of the cluster strengthens coordination, encourages authorities possession and management and avoids duplication of efforts.
Aligning with the federal government’s plans for schooling can be key to sustainability of actions in addressing OOSC. The Nigerian Authorities’s Training Renewal initiative prioritizes the problem of OOSC in its agenda and continues to name on actors to collectively harmonize methods and assets to answering these key questions ‘Who’re they?’, ‘The place are they?’ and ‘Why are they OOSC?’
Moreover, on the nationwide stage, the UN continues to interact with the Federal Ministry of Training and its businesses such because the Common Primary Training Fee, Nationwide Fee for Almajiri and Out-of-College Youngsters with the purpose of 1) maintaining the problem of OOSC on the agenda of the federal government, 2) supporting improvement of insurance policies and methods for addressing the wants of OOSC, 3) implementing actions to make sure enrolment, retention and completion for learners, and 4) mobilizing and allocating assets for states in addressing these points.
Lastly, predictable and versatile funding is crucial in Nigeria’s extremely unpredictable context, the place households are displaced a number of occasions. Donor help by way of ECW and different mechanisms is vital – not solely to satisfy pressing wants but in addition to construct resilience so schooling methods are protected throughout future crises.
ECW: Over your profession, you’ve gotten labored in a few of the world’s most extreme disaster contexts, together with Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Indonesia (Banda Aceh post-tsunami) and Nigeria. Why ought to donors, the personal sector and nationwide governments spend money on schooling as a constructing block for sustainable improvement?
Mohamed M. Malick Fall: When communities are destabilized by battle, schooling is usually the primary service disrupted and the final to be restored. But, it’s the one funding that provides kids and youth the instruments to rebuild their lives and societies. In my experiences within the conflict-affected and post-disaster nations wherein I’ve served, schooling offers safety, maintaining kids protected from recruitment into armed teams, exploitation and dangerous practices, and offers post-trauma restoration.
Having labored in nations that skilled the worst disasters of the previous a long time (for instance, the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, every with over 200,000 lives claimed, hundreds of thousands displaced and big destruction of infrastructure), I witnessed how schooling companies have been important in bringing again normalcy to individuals’s lives and offering kids with the psychosocial help they wanted to get well from being separated from or having misplaced their mother and father and/or households. This is the reason I all the time carry the conviction that schooling in emergencies is a life-saving intervention, past the position it performs in rapid response in addition to longer-term restoration.
Investing in schooling isn’t charity; it’s a good, long-term funding. Each greenback spent on schooling in conflict-affected nations is a vital contribution to constructing long-term human capital and resilience. Take Nigeria, for instance: the nation has a quickly rising youth inhabitants, and if these younger persons are left with out schooling and expertise, it’s going to create a disaster for the long run.
Nonetheless, if they’re educated, they are going to be empowered to make knowledgeable well being decisions now and sooner or later, thereby resulting in decreased maternal and baby mortality, improved vitamin and stronger resilience in opposition to ailments. It is usually necessary to say that in the present day’s socioeconomic progress is usually based mostly on individuals’s expertise and information, as proven by nations which have taken the lead on improvements similar to new know-how, synthetic intelligence, and many others. Subsequently, for my part, in fragile contexts, schooling isn’t non-obligatory, however slightly it’s the basis for restoration, peacebuilding, social cohesion and sustainable improvement.
It’s the bridge between rapid humanitarian response and long-term stability. With out it, sustainable improvement merely can’t be achieved. Due to the generosity of donors, ECW has not solely mobilized much-needed assets but in addition demonstrated that schooling response should start on the very onset of a disaster.
ECW: As we embrace the Pact for the Future, Grand Cut price Agreements and the UN80 Initiative, how can we streamline efficiencies and activate native networks to ship life-saving foundational schooling helps throughout the globe and make good on the promise of schooling for all as outlined within the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Growth?
Mohamed M. Malick Fall: The targets of those initiatives revolves round an identical theme – how nations can higher align their assets to achieve extra, particularly marginalized, conflict- and disaster-affected populations, and make the most of native assets.
Partnership is essential – the place nations have discovered what works to raised their foundational schooling, these confirmed approaches and interventions ought to be scaled up and with applicable cultural context, establishing and constructing on the present authorities constructions, communities, native CSOs and NGOs (together with youth organizations). The CSOs are closest to the grassroots; they’ll contact and attain many communities. We should shift from centralized supply fashions to domestically led options. The localization mannequin is gaining actual momentum inside the humanitarian structure. In Nigeria, for instance, the Nigeria Humanitarian Fund allocates pooled funds on to nationwide NGOs, enabling them to ship sooner, extra effectively and in nearer partnership with these on the frontlines. This method is displaying promising outcomes. With continued funding in strengthening their institutional and technical capacities, nationwide NGOs can take better possession of the response, making certain that interventions should not solely well timed but in addition extra sustainable and rooted in native realities.
The opposite instance that is still indelible in my thoughts is from my tenure within the Central African Republic on the peak of the disaster there. At a time when many lecturers needed to flee from their positions as a result of non secular and/or ethnic affiliation, many mother and father stepped in to interchange them, serving as “maîtres-parents” (parent-teachers) and making certain that kids continued to obtain schooling. The UN supplied them with important help similar to fundamental coaching, instructing and studying supplies. That is, to me, an incredible instance of neighborhood engagement that maintained a sector as important as schooling throughout one of many worst crises the nation had ever skilled. The house-based faculties that I noticed in Afghanistan, created to offer schooling to ladies whose proper to schooling was denied by the Taliban, are one other reminiscence of neighborhood efforts to maintain schooling within the face of the strongest non secular and cultural boundaries.
After we go collectively, we obtain extra. On this time of cuts to assist funding, we should align assets and keep away from duplication of initiatives – so we are able to get extra returns for each greenback invested. The supply of high quality schooling information may help nations design and allocate assets to the place it’s most wanted. The Federal Ministry of Training is investing lots within the Nigeria Training Information Initiative – a government-led effort to centralize and modernize schooling information throughout all ranges in Nigeria. This can assist to align interventions to the place it’s wanted most, design fit-for-purpose interventions and keep away from duplication of efforts by the intervening businesses/companions.
As we speak, new know-how gives unprecedented alternatives to speed up each entry and high quality of schooling whereas, on the similar time, lowering its price. Educating and studying may be completed by way of low-cost tech options to achieve most learners, as demonstrated throughout lockdown in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Distance studying utilizing new know-how helped to keep away from a misplaced technology. The acceleration of the Sustainable Growth Objectives associated to schooling ought to make most use of the alternatives supplied by new know-how.
We will construct a resilient native ecosystem that may help schooling for all kids. By streamlining financing, empowering native networks and embedding schooling in disaster response, we are able to flip commitments beneath the Pact for the Future, the Grand Cut price and the UN80 Initiative into concrete motion – making schooling not only a promise, however a assure for each baby, all over the place, as envisioned within the 2030 Agenda.
ECW: Why is investing in ladies’ schooling – particularly for weak ladies on the frontlines of battle, local weather change, compelled displacement and different protracted crises – so necessary?
Mohamed M. Malick Fall: Investing in ladies’ schooling – particularly for weak ladies residing on the frontlines of battle, local weather change, compelled displacement and protracted crises – isn’t solely an ethical crucial, but in addition a strategic funding within the nation’s restoration, stability, resilience and long-term improvement.
There’s international proof on why it’s necessary to spend money on ladies’ schooling, with advantages together with improved revenue for the ladies, breaking down of the cycle of poverty, low maternal and baby mortality charges, and shifts in social norms. Nigeria has made strides in enhancing the enrolment and retention of ladies in faculties. In battle and protracted disaster areas, ladies are reported to be liable to sexual exploitation, gender-based violence and early and compelled marriage. Investing in schooling for ladies will scale back their vulnerability and supply a chance to contribute to improvement and construct their confidence to make knowledgeable selections about their lives and future. The UN and its companions are making certain that ladies who’ve been compelled into baby marriage and teenage motherhood (i.e. as a result of socio-cultural or financial boundaries) have a chance to enrol in class and break the cycle of poverty and illiteracy. We have now collaborated with the Federal Ministry of Training to develop nationwide tips for the facilitation of re-entry of pregnant and married adolescent ladies into faculty.
UNESCO estimates that baby marriage would drop by 64% if all ladies accomplished secondary schooling. Main completion price is round 73% for each girls and boys, in line with the Nationwide Bureau of Statistics and UNICEF. Disparities in completion charges are proven at junior secondary faculty stage with 69% for boys and 67% for ladies; at senior secondary faculty, the completion charges are 57% for boys and 51% for ladies. For instance, the Women’ Training Programme led by the UN introduced again over 1.5 million ladies in fundamental schooling and supported their retention programme. This initiative strengthened neighborhood efforts to enrol ladies in class, inspired completion and transition, and constructed resilience. As of July 2025, the capability of over 290,000 ladies in Kano, Jigawa and Sokoto was strengthened by way of Women for Women golf equipment that empowered communities to talk out round problems with gender-based violence and college security issues, in line with UNICEF.
The UN in Nigeria can be supporting the Federal Ministry of Training to construct the capability of lecturers throughout states to ship Training for Well being and Wellbeing to learners in Nigerian faculties. Since 2020, over 3 million learners (girls and boys, particularly in humanitarian settings) have been empowered with factual sexual and reproductive well being data, and the required life expertise to construct their company to be resilient and set targets in direction of changing into respectable adults.
ECW: Everyone knows that ‘readers are leaders’ and that studying expertise are key to each baby’s schooling. What are three books which have most affected you personally and/or professionally?
Mohamed M. Malick Fall: “L’enfant noir” by Camara Laye (The Black Baby); “L’aventure ambigue” by Cheikh Hamidou Kane (The Ambiguous Journey); “The Audacity of Hope” by Barack Obama.
The primary e book is a couple of baby rising up in Africa who may be very near his mom and whose upbringing was supported by the prolonged household. This e book touched me as a result of it highlights the significance of the mother-child relationship within the improvement of a kid’s character and the way that is defining in figuring out how profitable a baby shall be.
The second e book is a couple of Senegalese baby rising up in a context of interplay between Africans and Western tradition. This e book helped me to navigate and discover the fitting steadiness between these two cultures rising up in post-independence Senegal, and finding out in each my very own nation and in France.
The third e book helped to strengthen my management, primarily working in a context of hardship and excessive human struggling, the place hope stays a significant factor in serving to communities to get well from battle and get again on their ft.
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