Italy's government will donate around a million euros to a joint project with the United Nations cultural organisation Unesco that is aimed at ensuring access to education for children in Iraq who are not in school, the foreign ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
Under an accord signed on Thursday in Doha with the foreign ministry, Uneseco will restart ten schools, conduct campaigns to promote enrollment and provide school kits to about 17,000 boys and girls of the governorates of Salah al-Din and Baghdad, said the statement.
"In the Iraqi context it is even more important than anywhere else to create synergies between the different sources of knowledge and experience," said the foreign ministry's development cooperation chief Giorgio Marrapodi.
"We are confident that this project will be a starting point for a broader and more fruitful trilateral collaboration with Qatar, in Iraq and also in other contexts," he said, speaking at the signing ceremony.
Italy - a newly re-elected member of Unesco's executive board - has always been one of the major contributors to Unesco, the country's ambassador to Qatar, Pasquale Salzano, stated.
"The project agreement signed today in Doha strengthens our commitment to promote access to education, alongside Qatar and the Education Above All foundation which is engaged in Iraq in Africa and in the world, providing education to over 10 million children living in crisis areas," he said.
Paolo Fontani, Director of the Unesco Office in Iraq thanked the Italian government for its support to the project, which aims to remove obstacles preventing children from going to school.
"Improved access to education for excluded boys and girls is the best possible contribution to their future and to the future of Iraq," Fontani stated.
