DIRECTOR-GENERAL COMMITS UNESCO’S COOPERATION WITH THE G-8 IN DRIVE FOR UNIVERSAL EDUCATION

Paris, July 9 - UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura has written to Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien in the aftermath of the G-8 Summit in Kananaskis assuring UNESCO’s co-operation with the group of the most industrialized countries in their support of universal education.

Congratulating the Prime Minister for “the highly successful outcome” of the Summit, Mr Matsuura highlighted that it spelled “accelerating progress towards universal primary education”.

“I welcome in particular the G-8’s strong endorsement of the Report of its Task Force on Education and its commitment to increase significantly bilateral funding for developing countries that have demonstrated a strong and credible policy and financial commitment to achieve universal primary education [UPE]”, he said. “This reinforces the Monterrey Consensus and provides the financial backing for supporting countries selected for the fast-track initiative for achieving UPE”, the Director-General explained.

He further pointed out that this “represents an important step in meeting the pledge we made at the World Education Forum at Dakar two years ago that ‘no countries seriously committed to Education for All [EFA] will be thwarted in the achievement of this goal by a lack of resources.’”

Recalling that “UNESCO continues to play its assigned role in promoting the broad vision of EFA as enunciated by the international community at Dakar”, Mr Matsuura concluded: “We look forward to working closely with the G-8 in translating the pledges made at the Kananaskis Summit into reality and to finding ways to sustain the constructive engagement of the G-8 in education, particularly basic education, all the way up to the target date of 2015 for achieving the goals of EFA.”