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 growth, humanitarian and peacebuilding fields. Previous to his appointment, he served because the UNICEF Regional Director for Japanese and Southern Africa, the place he supplied oversight and steerage to 21 UNICEF Nations Places of work, 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, guaranteeing 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 Schooling Adviser in Haiti (2010–2012), and as Chief of Schooling in Indonesia (2006–2010) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (2003–2006). He was additionally briefly assigned as Schooling 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: Immediately, there are 18.3 million youngsters out of college 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 secure and protecting studying environments?
Mohamed M. Malick Fall: Given the size of the variety of youngsters which might be out of college, constructing partnerships (in addition to strengthening present partnerships) at nationwide, state and native stage is among the methods to help out-of-school youngsters (OOSC) to get again to highschool or into various studying pathways. No single actor can deal with this problem alone – it requires collective management, assets and innovation to deal with this profound problem. Along with the Ministry of Schooling, UN businesses, civil society organizations, and spiritual and faith-based leaders, ECW should align their help with nationwide training priorities. This fashion, interventions don’t create parallel methods however as an alternative strengthen and reinforce present training buildings.
Strengthening collaboration and leveraging assets is crucial to reaching a clearly communicated aim of lowering the variety of OOSC. The training surroundings should be secure and conducive to encourage attendance and studying. Therefore, guaranteeing that the educational surroundings is free from all types of abuse and violence, offering inclusive school rooms for learners with disabilities, and equipping academics with requisite expertise and information to help learners as want arises. The UN with ECW has demonstrated this via a Multi-12 months Resilience Programme – which has introduced collectively completely different INGOs and native NGOs, below the management of the three state governments, Borno, Adamawa and Yobe (BAY). This partnership resulted in about 200,000 youngsters benefiting from numerous interventions. As well as, over 130,000 youngsters within the BAY states will profit from ECW-supported interventions. ECW, via its First Emergency Response, can be supporting over 100,000 girls and boys in insecurity susceptible areas of Northwest Nigeria to proceed accessing formal and non-formal training in secure areas. ECW’s strategy of working via the cluster strengthens coordination, encourages authorities possession and management and avoids duplication of efforts.
Aligning with the federal government’s plans for training can be key to sustainability of actions in addressing OOSC. The Nigerian Authorities’s Schooling Renewal initiative prioritizes the difficulty 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 Schooling and its businesses such because the Common Fundamental Schooling Fee, Nationwide Fee for Almajiri and Out-of-Faculty Youngsters with the goal of 1) holding the difficulty of OOSC on the agenda of the federal government, 2) supporting growth of insurance policies and techniques 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 via ECW and different mechanisms is vital – not solely to satisfy pressing wants but in addition to construct resilience so training methods are protected throughout future crises.
ECW: Over your profession, you’ve labored in a number 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 training as a constructing block for sustainable growth?
Mohamed M. Malick Fall: When communities are destabilized by battle, training is commonly the primary service disrupted and the final to be restored. But, it’s the one funding that offers youngsters and youth the instruments to rebuild their lives and societies. In my experiences within the conflict-affected and post-disaster international locations by which I’ve served, training supplies safety, holding youngsters secure from recruitment into armed teams, exploitation and dangerous practices, and supplies post-trauma restoration.
Having labored in international locations that skilled the worst disasters of the previous many years (for instance, the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, every with over 200,000 lives claimed, thousands and thousands displaced and large destruction of infrastructure), I witnessed how training companies have been very important in bringing again normalcy to individuals’s lives and offering youngsters with the psychosocial help they wanted to recuperate from being separated from or having misplaced their dad and mom and/or households. That is why I all the time carry the conviction that training in emergencies is a life-saving intervention, past the position it performs in fast response in addition to longer-term restoration.
Investing in training isn’t charity; it’s a good, long-term funding. Each greenback spent on training in conflict-affected international locations 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 training and expertise, it can create a disaster for the long run.
Nevertheless, if they’re educated, they are going to be empowered to make knowledgeable well being decisions now and sooner or later, thereby resulting in lowered maternal and baby mortality, improved diet and stronger resilience towards illnesses. Additionally it is essential to say that in the present day’s socioeconomic progress is generally primarily based on individuals’s expertise and information, as proven by international locations which have taken the lead on improvements comparable to new know-how, synthetic intelligence, and many others. Due to this fact, in my opinion, in fragile contexts, training isn’t elective, however reasonably it’s the basis for restoration, peacebuilding, social cohesion and sustainable growth.
It’s the bridge between fast humanitarian response and long-term stability. With out it, sustainable growth merely can’t be achieved. Because of the generosity of donors, ECW has not solely mobilized much-needed assets but in addition demonstrated that training response should start on the very onset of a disaster.
ECW: As we embrace the Pact for the Future, Grand Discount Agreements and the UN80 Initiative, how can we streamline efficiencies and activate native networks to ship life-saving foundational training helps throughout the globe and make good on the promise of training for all as outlined within the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Improvement?
Mohamed M. Malick Fall: The targets of those initiatives revolves round an analogous 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 vital – the place international locations have discovered what works to higher their foundational training, these confirmed approaches and interventions must be scaled up and with applicable cultural context, establishing and constructing on the prevailing authorities buildings, 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 regionally led options. The localization mannequin is gaining actual momentum throughout the humanitarian structure. In Nigeria, for instance, the Nigeria Humanitarian Fund allocates pooled funds on to nationwide NGOs, enabling them to ship quicker, extra effectively and in nearer partnership with these on the frontlines. This strategy is displaying promising outcomes. With continued funding in strengthening their institutional and technical capacities, nationwide NGOs can take higher possession of the response, guaranteeing that interventions are usually 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 academics needed to flee from their positions attributable to non secular and/or ethnic affiliation, many dad and mom stepped in to exchange them, serving as “maîtres-parents” (parent-teachers) and guaranteeing that youngsters continued to obtain training. The UN supplied them with important help comparable to fundamental coaching, instructing and studying supplies. That is, to me, an excellent instance of group engagement that maintained a sector as very important as training throughout one of many worst crises the nation had ever skilled. The house-based faculties that I noticed in Afghanistan, created to offer training to women whose proper to training was denied by the Taliban, are one other reminiscence of group efforts to maintain training within the face of the strongest non secular and cultural limitations.
Once we go collectively, we obtain extra. On this time of cuts to help funding, we should align assets and keep away from duplication of initiatives – so we will get extra returns for each greenback invested. The provision of high quality training information may also help international locations design and allocate assets to the place it’s most wanted. The Federal Ministry of Schooling is investing so much within the Nigeria Schooling Knowledge Initiative – a government-led effort to centralize and modernize training information throughout all ranges in Nigeria. This may 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.
Immediately, new know-how gives unprecedented alternatives to speed up each entry and high quality of training whereas, on the identical time, lowering its value. Instructing and studying will be performed via low-cost tech options to achieve most learners, as demonstrated throughout lockdown through the COVID-19 pandemic. Distance studying utilizing new know-how helped to keep away from a misplaced technology. The acceleration of the Sustainable Improvement Objectives associated to training ought to make most use of the alternatives provided by new know-how.
We are able to construct a resilient native ecosystem that may help training for all youngsters. By streamlining financing, empowering native networks and embedding training in disaster response, we will flip commitments below the Pact for the Future, the Grand Discount and the UN80 Initiative into concrete motion – making training 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’ training – particularly for susceptible ladies on the frontlines of battle, local weather change, pressured displacement and different protracted crises – so essential?
Mohamed M. Malick Fall: Investing in ladies’ training – particularly for susceptible ladies dwelling on the frontlines of battle, local weather change, pressured 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 growth.
There may be international proof on why it’s essential to spend money on ladies’ training, with advantages together with improved earnings for the women, breaking down of the cycle of poverty, low maternal and baby mortality charges, and shifts in social norms. Nigeria has made strides in bettering the enrolment and retention of ladies in faculties. In battle and protracted disaster areas, ladies are reported to be prone to sexual exploitation, gender-based violence and early and compelled marriage. Investing in training for women will scale back their vulnerability and supply a chance to contribute to growth and construct their confidence to make knowledgeable choices about their lives and future. The UN and its companions are guaranteeing that ladies who’ve been pressured into baby marriage and teenage motherhood (i.e. attributable to socio-cultural or financial limitations) have a chance to enrol in class and break the cycle of poverty and illiteracy. Now we have collaborated with the Federal Ministry of Schooling 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 training. Major completion charge is round 73% for each girls and boys, in accordance 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 women; at senior secondary faculty, the completion charges are 57% for boys and 51% for women. For instance, the Women’ Schooling Programme led by the UN introduced again over 1.5 million ladies in fundamental training and supported their retention programme. This initiative strengthened group 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 via Women for Women golf equipment that empowered communities to talk out round problems with gender-based violence and college security considerations, in accordance with UNICEF.
The UN in Nigeria can be supporting the Federal Ministry of Schooling to construct the capability of academics throughout states to ship Schooling 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 turning into respectable adults.
ECW: Everyone knows that ‘readers are leaders’ and that studying expertise are key to each baby’s training. 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 Little one); “L’aventure ambigue” by Cheikh Hamidou Kane (The Ambiguous Journey); “The Audacity of Hope” by Barack Obama.
The primary ebook is a few baby rising up in Africa who could be very near his mom and whose upbringing was supported by the prolonged household. This ebook touched me as a result of it highlights the significance of the mother-child relationship within the growth of a kid’s character and the way that is defining in figuring out how profitable a baby shall be.
The second ebook is a few Senegalese baby rising up in a context of interplay between Africans and Western tradition. This ebook helped me to navigate and discover the correct 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 ebook 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 recuperate from battle and get again on their toes.
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