UNESCO Director-General hails education pledges

The Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Koïchiro Matsuura, has hailed a 4.5 billion dollar commitment to Education for All made in New York on September 25 as a decisive step forward, but noted that pledges and promises, past and present, must be kept.

Matsuura spoke at the launch of a new multi-stakeholder partnership by the Global Campaign for Education, a nongovernmental organization. The “Class for 2015: Education for All” includes governments, charities, private sector companies, faith groups, and education advocates, who will build the political will to achieve education goals and remind world leaders of their promise to provide every child with access to education by 2015.

At the event, held on the occasion of a high-level meeting organized by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon to boost action to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, these stakeholders pledged 4.5 billion dollars to education over the next three years--two-thirds of this for basic education.

UNESCO is the global coordinator of efforts to achieve Education for All. Despite significant improvements in recent years, some 75 million children still have no access to education, and 774 million adults and young people still cannot read or write. UNESCO estimates that an extra seven billion dollars will be required annually to achieve Education for All in low income countries by 2015.

For more information, visit UNESCO website or the Global Campaign for Education website.