Brussels, 06/06/2014 (Agence Europe) - Five hundred key players in the world of education in rich and developing countries are expected in Brussels on 26 June to attend the second donor conference of the Global Partnership for Education, a multilateral initiative which aims to guarantee every child the right to a good basic education. The Global Partnership for Education is seeking funding for the next three years to work towards the Millennium Development Goals because the section on education for girls has been largely ignored. The conference will be chaired jointly by the Global Partnership for Education and the European Commission and aims to raise US$3.5 billion (€2.57 billion) for 2015-2018.
On Tuesday 5 June, the G7 laid down development commitments. The president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, and EU Development Commissioner Andris Piebalgs called on the international community to do more to educate girls around the world and signed an open letter to this effect with Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, and Julia Gillard, head of the Global Partnerhsip for Education and former prime minister of Australia. The letter welcomes the work done by the Global Partnership for Education to get tangible political commitment from the partner counties but expresses concern at the 5% reduction in aid for education since 2010, seven times higher than the reduction in public development aid as a whole. They urge the donor countries and developing countries to provide more support for education.
“The right to education, particularly for girls, is still too often denied - sometimes violently as the recent abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls in Nigeria shows. This is completely unacceptable and we condemn the terrorist actions of Boko Haram in the strongest possible terms. We call on the entire international community to stand together for the right of all children - girls and boys - to education”, write the signatories.
Despite considerable progress, 57 million children of primary school age do not attend school, with more than half living in fragile, conflict-ridden countries. (AN)