CHILD LABOUR NEWS SERVICE SPECIAL RELEASE
31 October 2001
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
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EFA FLOUNDERING AFTER DAKAR
31 October 2001, Paris - Eighteen months after the World Education
Forum in Dakar, the drive towards Education for All (EFA) seems
to be headed nowhere. Some signs show that it has even slipped
into reverse.
At its Paris headquarters, UNESCO convened this week the first
meeting of the so-called "High-Level Group on Education for All".
Mandated to be an elite gathering of the top leaders from governments,
civil society, and development agencies, the event was the first
chance to examine the actual progress since the Dakar Forum.
Selected speakers reported on national and international developments
and UNESCO provided participants with its first ever monitoring
report. The speeches were generally upbeat and the report emphasized
many positive developments from the past, but a close look at
the fine print and figures gave little grounds for optimism.
A key first step in the follow-up to Dakar was to be the development
or strengthening of national EFA plans. Due by 2002 at the latest,
the plans would form the basis of future national and international
action. To check on how things have been moving, UNESCO sent
a questionnaire to its members states asking about their national
plans. Most did not reply. Of those that did response, 41 indicated
that they have a plan, 39 of which had been ready before the
Dakar Forum, and some even a decade earlier. This left a grand
total of 2 new national plans developed since Dakar.
Another crucial promise from Dakar was for increased donor support
for basic education. The Dakar Framework for Action pledged
that "no countries seriously committed to education for all will
be thwarted in their achievement of this goal by a lack of resources".
Reports from the High-Level Group showed little evidence of
increased international support for basic education beyond its
abysmally low level of just $700 million per year. The World
Bank, the world's largest lender for education, has in fact reduced
its aid. After flashy talk in Dakar of fast-track action plans
for countries ready to move quickly towards universal education,
and President Wolfensohn's stirring call that, "the time for
action is now", the Bank has since cut its education lending
in half.
Gorgui Sow, Coordinator of the Africa Network Campaign on Education
for All (ANCEFA), reports a grim situation in the continent.
Despite encouraging developments in a few countries, most African
nations have received little support as they struggle to improve
the quality and reach of their basic education system. Sow says
that his native Senegal has been rewarded with increased developed
assistance after playing host to the World Education Forum, but
he questions the high cost and use of loans to his heavily-indebted
country. "Why should the poor people of my country be put further
into debt to pay for endless seminars, international missions,
and low-impact literacy programs," Sow asked.
The most important overall commitment from the 164 governments
that attended the Dakar Forum is that by 2015 all children will
have access to and complete free, compulsory education of good
quality. This itself was a rescheduling of the original promise
made in Jomtien, Thailand in 1990 that the world would have universal
education by the year 2000. In the mid-90's, when it was becoming
clear that the world was falling behind this target, instead
of picking up the pace, the international community simply postponed
the date to 2015.
UNESCO's monitoring report plots the trajectories for various
regions on the path to the 2015 target. Already, in what might
be one of the quickest ever step-downs from an agreed development
target, UNESCO is planning only for universal enrolment by 2015,
with no clear indication of when children would be completing
an education of good quality. Even achieving this reduced target
will require a significant increase from the present efforts.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, future efforts will need to be almost
three times the level of the past decade if the 2015 target is
to be met. For the Arab Region, efforts will need to double.
One of the earliest targets set in Dakar was the elimination
of gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005.
By now few have any serious hope that this will happen. A recent
Social Watch report even showed that 33% of countries have experienced
setbacks in their net rates of female primary school enrolment
over the past decade. UNESCO's monitoring report simply summarises
the gender disparity rates in 1998 and highlights a couple good
initiatives in India and Pakistan. Unlike the detailed calculations
for the comfortably distant 2015 goals, the monitoring report
makes no effort to project which countries will end gender disparities
by 2005, as it is painfully clear that little will have improved
by then.
A key solution to the urgent need for action was supposed to
be the "Global Initiative". The Dakar Framework commits the
international community to "launching with immediate effect a
global initiative aimed at developing the strategies and mobilising
the resources needed to provide effective support to national
efforts." It appears, however, that officials in the UN's intellectual
citadel are having trouble grappling with the meaning of "immediate".
Eighteen months later, the "Global Initiative" has not even
been designed, let alone formalised, funded and launched.
Shortly after assuming leadership of UNESCO, Director-General
Koïchiro Matsuura told delegates at the World Education Forum
that, "The last day in Dakar must be the first day of a collective
and victorious struggle to achieve Education for All." At this
point it is difficult to spot any victories or even struggles.
Indeed, when melodic music wafted in during Matsuura's address
to the High-Level Group, it seemed as if the band was playing
while the Captain was speaking and the ship was sinking.
As the lead agency responsible for education, UNESCO has come
under heavy fire for its laissez-faire approach. It has been
labelled as the most bureaucratic and ineffective member of the
UN family, incapable of producing any results. But such harsh
criticisms are patently unfair. UNESCO has enjoyed first-rate
successes in the protection of invaluable cultural treasures
around the world. The difficulty, though, seems to be in moving
from celebrating "Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage
of Humanity (Venue: Room I)" to completing the more concrete
task of getting children into school for a meaningful education.
In a telling demonstration of institutional priorities, UNESCO
seems to have no trouble hosting a free concert of traditional
music, songs and dance by the "Young Talents of the Autonomous
District of Khanty-Mansiysk of the Russian Federation", while
there is still no sign of a national action plan for Russia's
collapsing education system.
The failure to advance basic education will be the undoing of
many of the UN's millenium goals. The spread of basic education
and literacy is fundamentally important to other international
goals of reducing poverty, improving the status of women, curbing
population growth, and ending child labour. Without significant
results on the education front, these other efforts are likely
to be ineffective and unsuccessful. The lack of free, quality
education is the single most important reason the world has 250
million child labourers today. The vaunted goal of halving global
poverty by 2015 will certainly not be achieved if more is not
done for basic education.
There are, however, some signs of hope.
UNDP Administrator, Mark Malloch Brown, conveyed to the High-Level
Group that all UNDP Resident Coordinators have been urged to
devote special attention to the EFA goals, which he termed "crucial
to our efforts to help create a world free of poverty and discrimination."
While these words are encouraging, they need to be followed-up
by more concrete measures.
UNICEF has been moving ahead as the lead agency for the UN Girls'
Education Initiative. Launched by Kofi Annan in Dakar, the Initiative
is trying to help governments meet their commitment to provide
quality education for girls, and already it has had a number
of successes with pilot projects. Now the challenge will be
to scale up these programs so that they have a noticeable impact
on the 70 million girls left out of school.
There are also important developments at the national level.
Following a nation-wide march for education in the first half
of this year, the Indian representative at the High-Level Group
Meeting reported that the government would be declaring education
a fundamental right and backing up their commitment with an additional
$2 billion invested into basic education each year. Home to
the largest number of out-of-school children and illiterate adults,
these moves by India would be a significant step forward. The
Philippines representative reported that in his country a ban
on school fees instituted this past year has lead to an immediate
7% increase in enrolment. The Zimbabwean representative, on
the other hand, expressed his preference for Pakistan's model
of development which produced a nuclear state with only 47% literacy,
while Zimbabwe's own rate of 89% literacy has left his country
not so well equipped.
Members of the Global Campaign for Education participating on
the High-Level Group stressed the need for simultaneous action
at the national and international levels. Barbara Stocking,
Director of Oxfam, outlined the Campaign's proposal that the
"Global Initiative" be composed of high quality EFA plans, a
detailed worldwide ledger to track progress, and a financial
framework to fill the funding gaps. Kailash Satyarthi, Chairperson
of the Global March Against Child Labour, proposed the formation
of National Commissions for Education, supported by District-Level
Vigilance Committees. Satyarthi felt that education must be
recognised and defended in the same way as any other human right.
"If we continue to see education as just a charity project or
social welfare measure, it will always be vulnerable to economic
pressures and shifting political priorities. Quality education
must be the non-negotiable right of every human being," said
Satyarthi.
The next few months may see a dramatic increase in efforts towards
Education for All. Starting next January, Canada will assume
leadership of the G8 countries and they have already signaled
their determination to achieve major results in the field of
education. The communiqué from the High-Level Group instructs
UNESCO to develop by March 2002 at the latest a strategy to implement
the Dakar Framework. Included in this will be the design for
the Global Initiative, which would then, again, be implemented
with "immediate effect". To mobilise civil society and keep
pressure on governments, the Global Campaign for Education will
coordinate a worldwide week of action for education at the end
of April, marking the second anniversary of the Dakar Framework.
The UN's Special Session on Children should follow shortly after
with a renewed pledge to protect children and their right to
education.
These and other efforts might just be enough to bring EFA back
on track. Despite all the grounds for despair, the task is not
as insurmountable as it seems. The fountain of funds and flurry
of international activity since the September 11th attacks show
vividly what the world is capable of doing when it sets its mind
to something. What now will it take for the world to realise
that Education for All must not become another broken promise?
# # #
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