Paris, April 27 (No.2001-66) - UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura today spoke to the Permanent Delegates to the Organization on the occasion of the first anniversary of the World Education Forum (Dakar, April 26 - 28, 2000) which was also marked by the publication of a joint statement by the heads of the education for all (EFA) partners: UNESCO, the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

“For UNESCO, there will henceforth be a before and after Dakar,” the Director-General said as he reviewed the first 12 months since Dakar and stressing coming actions, events and developments, both concerning UNESCO and its role in the EFA process as a whole.

Despite the short time that has elapsed since the Dakar Forum, Mr Matsuura spoke of encouraging results, the outcome of a process launched a long time ago, in countries such as India - where, for the first time since independence the number of illiterates has declined - Uganda whose primary school enrolment doubled in just two years, and Bangladesh where the rate of literacy has risen from 35% to 65% in one decade. Mr Matsuura said that these examples “prove that really significant advances are possible and that the goals of education for all can be reached thanks to political will, sustained commitment and the mobilization of civil society as a whole.”

Speaking about what he considers to be the key elements in the follow-up to Dakar, Mr Matsuura stressed three points: “Firstly, core action takes place at the national level. It is governments that are primarily responsible for the implementation of the objectives set out in Dakar. […] The second key element concerns the urgent need to prepare or revise national education for all [action] plans no later than 2002. […] Third key element, all education for all partners must draw on the present impetus in favour of action, co-operation and networking. In other words, we must build on what already exists. […] The fact that much remains to be done should not detract from what we have already accomplished and from the solid bases many countries have already built.”

The Director-General declared that the role of UNESCO must be to play the part of “an active, dynamic and conscientious force at the service of the education for all movement as a whole through its action of co-ordination, mobilization, advocacy, information and communication. Moreover, through various modalities of technical co-operation, UNESCO will lend direct support and expertise to the countries that need it.” He added: “I pledge to use all the resources at my disposal to meet the expectations formulated in Dakar and to keep the promises made a year ago.”

Turning to the future, Mr Matsuura notably announced the holding next October of a first meeting of the High Level Group composed of ministers, high level representatives of civil society and of multilateral aid agencies. Heads of state and government will address this meeting which will take stock of the follow-up to Dakar and discuss future strategies. The EFA Working Group will also meet this year (September 10 - 12). This informal mechanism which already met last October, provides technical guidance to the EFA movement, creates and sustains partnerships, and brings support to regional and sub-regional networks.

Regarding funding, Mr Matsuura declared that it was vital that an increased proportion of official development assistance be devoted to education, particularly to basic education. He recognized, however, that “many countries in need of large amounts of aid need to strengthen their management systems and their capacity to absorb this aid quickly and effectively. All EFA partners must stand ready to assist them in this task.”

UNESCO will seek “to promote education for all at every opportunity, through a differentiated approach that reaches out to the general public as well as targeting particular institutions, forums and meetings”, Mr Matsuura said, before concluding: “The challenge of bringing all the out-of-school children to school in the near future and ensuring that they attain satisfactory levels of learning is truly daunting. […] The litmus test of our ability to achieve EFA by 2015 lies in the continent of Africa, sub-Saharan Africa in particular. It is here that national governments, civil society and the international community must pool their human, material and financial resources to generate strategies and plans of action that are an adequate response to the gravity of the situation on the ground. This will require a high order of leadership and an exceptional degree of collaboration. Within the collective commitment made in Dakar there were hundreds of separate commitments. It is time for all of us to make good on our individual promises and, as we do so, I am certain that the benefits of our shared commitment will begin to flow and assist the most needy and the deprived.”

In the joint statement published today, UNESCO and its partners in the education for all initiative - the World Bank, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) - stress that the world’s failure to give children presently deprived of education the ability to transform their lives “will have profound consequences, not only for their home countries, but for the rest of the global community for generations to come.”

****