|
News
bulletin board of UNESCO's Education Sector
|
|
No.
1
|
| |
|
| Welcome
to the electronic news bulletin board of UNESCO's
Education Sector, informing you about UNESCO's
follow-up activities to the World Education
Forum in Dakar (April 2000). |
| |
|
Contents (21 July 2000)
- UNESCO ACTION PLAN FOR DAKAR FOLLOW-UP
IN PREPARATION
-
FOLLOW-UP MECHANISMS TO THE DAKAR FORUM
- INTER-AGENCY PROGRAMMES TO BOOST EFFORTS
IN KEY AREAS
- COUNTRY GUIDELINES ON EFA IN PREPARATION
-
MISSION OF UNESCO'S ASSISTANT DIRECTOR-GENERAL
FOR EDUCATION TO THE UNITED STATES
- EXTENSIVE CONSULTATIONS WITH EFA STAKEHOLDERS
-
DISSEMINATION OF
DAKAR FINAL DOCUMENTS
|
| |
| UNESCO
ACTION PLAN FOR DAKAR FOLLOW-UP IN PREPARATION |
| |
 UNESCO
is currently reorganizing itself to assume the
leadership role in the Education for All, given
to the Organization at the World Education Forum
in Dakar. An inter-sectoral strategic group
has been established to co-ordinate follow-up
activities and to ensure that the Dakar Framework
for Action is reflected in all UNESCO activities
related to education. |
| |
| Now
on the table is a draft Action Plan, outlining
the concrete modalities of implementing the
Framework for Action at global, regional and
national levels. |
| |
| Drawing
on the lessons of the past, the draft Action
Plan stresses the importance of: |
| |
a.
ensuring that the developing countries play
the role of prime movers in the implementation
of the Dakar Framework for Action and that
they be therefore better represented in
the overall direction of the process.
b.
establishing positive relations with all
the bilateral agencies that manifested their
willingness to actively support the various
programmes and projects aimed at advancing
towards the objective of a quality education
for all.
c. enlarging the field of co-operation at
the international level, involving in the
follow-up to the Forum not only UNESCO's
four official partners in the Education
for All movement - UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF and
the World Bank - but also other multilateral
agencies such as ILO, FAO and WHO without
whose support the Organization will not
be able to meet the challenge made to it
at Dakar.
d.
ensuring the closer association of the ensemble
of UNESCO's Member States with the Forum's
follow-up; discussions were initiated to
this end with the fifty-eight countries
composing UNESCO's Executive Board which
met in May.
e. redefining its relations with the community
of NGOs, which should provide representatives
reflecting the community's diversity and
which should equally have a closer association
in the future with the follow-up to the
Dakar Forum.
|
| |
| The
draft Action Plan is currently being discussed
internally in UNESCO. A revised draft will be
circulated to EFA partners in a near future.
|
| |
|
=========
|
| |
| NEW
FOLLOW-UP MECHANISMS TO THE DAKAR FORUM |
| |
| In
line with the Dakar Framework for Action, the
Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura,
has decided to establish two bodies to serve
as levers for political commitment, and for
technical and financial resource mobilization.
|
| |
| Mr
Matsuura will convene a high-level informal
group of some twenty to twenty-five individuals,
including representatives of developing countries,
of donor countries and of multilateral aid agencies.
The objective of the group will be to sustain
and accelerate the political momentum created
at Dakar. Its first meeting will take place
before the first anniversary of the Dakar Forum. |
| |
| A
working group on Education for All, more technical
in nature, will be responsible for discussing
and supervising the implementation of the Dakar
follow-up activities and will assist UNESCO
in co-ordinating the diverse inter-agency initiatives
related to EFA. It will be a forum for exchange
rather than a decision-making body. This group
will comprise some thirty representatives of
developing countries, and bilateral and multilateral
agencies, as well as representatives of civil
society, the OECD and the G-8. It will be chaired
by the Assistant Director-General for Education
of UNESCO and will hold its first meeting in
November 2000. |
| |
|
=========
|
| |
| INTER-AGENCY
PROGRAMMES TO BOOST EFFORTS IN KEY AREAS |
| |
|
UNESCO supports in the draft Action Plan the
development or consolidation of major inter-agency
flagship programmes that respond to objectives
set in Dakar. They include: |
| |
|
the inter-agency initiative FRESH (Focusing
Resources for Effective School Health);
the inter-agency initiative on the theme
AIDS and education;
the inter-agency initiative devoted to early
childhood development;
the initiative in favour of literacy, which
falls within the framework of the proposed
United Nations Decade for Literacy;
the United Nations initiative in favour
of the education of girls and women;
the initiative on education in emergency
situations.
|
| |
|
The flagship programmes will have to be rethought
in the light of the Dakar Framework for Action.
The draft Action Plan points out that "it is
essential to invite the agencies that assure
the leadership to consolidate these initiatives,
UNESCO's action here being essentially that
of ensuring their synergy". |
| |
|
|
UNESCO is currently considering the launching
of other potential flagship programmes such
as 'education and the new technologies'. |
| |
|
=========
|
| |
| COUNTRY
GUIDELINES ON EFA UNDER PREPARATION |
| |
|
UNESCO has prepared a first draft of Country
Guidelines, which will be instrumental in preparing
national EFA plans of action. This draft points
out that the Dakar Framework for Action calls
for massive efforts to achieve goals never attained
before and demands new forms of collaboration
and participation, which many countries have
little familiarity with. It says that "the message
of Dakar is not one of complacency; on the contrary,
it is a wake-up call and an invitation to act
both urgently but also in a sustained way during
the years ahead. It is hoped that these guidelines
will prove helpful to those who take up this
invitation." |
| |
|
The country guidelines will be made available
shortly. |
| |
|
=========
|
| |
| MISSION
OF UNESCO'S ASSISTANT DIRECTOR-GENERAL FOR EDUCATION
TO THE UNITED STATES |
| |
|
|
Jacques Hallak, Assistant Director-General for
Education a.i. at UNESCO, will go on mission
to New York and Washington from 25 to 26 July
2000 to meet with Carol Bellamy, Executive Director
of UNICEF, Nafis Sadik, Executive Director of
UNFPA and Eduardo Doryan (Vice-president of
the World Bank). |
| |
|
|
Discussions will mainly focus on the draft Action
Plan mentioned above and on inter-agency co-operation
on EFA, including the questions of membership
of the working group on Education for All, financial
contributions to Dakar follow-up, inter-agency
flagship programmes and secondment of staff
to UNESCO. |
| |
|
=========
|
| |
| EXTENSIVE
CONSULTATIONS WITH EFA STAKEHOLDERS |
| |
|
Over the past three months, UNESCO's Director-General
and the Assistant Director-General for Education
have engaged in extensive consultations with
a broad range of EFA stakeholders, ranging from
the Secretary-General of the United Nations,
the heads of UNESCO's partner agencies and permanent
delegations to UNESCO to representatives from
bilateral donor agencies, regional networks
and non-governmental organizations active in
the field of education. |
| |
|
|
UNESCO has also established preliminary contacts
with OECD and the G-8 countries to reflect on
how to rationalize and intensify the flow of
financing in favour of basic education. |
| |
|
|
Finally, UNESCO ensured that the Dakar Framework
for Action was on the agenda of recent international
conferences such as the Beijing +5, Copenhagen
+5 and the meeting of the Economic and Social
Council (ECOSOC). |
|
|
=========
|
|
| DISSEMINATION
OF DAKAR FINAL DOCUMENTS |
| |
|
The Dakar Framework for Action now exists in
the six official languages of the United Nations
(Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and
Spanish). Most language versions are already
available on the World Education Forum website
(http://www2.unesco.org/wef),
where the regional frameworks for action also
can be found. The global and regional frameworks
will be published together with the Declaration
on Education for All (Jomtien, 1990). |
| |
|
The Final Report of the Dakar conference is
currently being translated for printing in the
same six languages. |
| |
|
|
Twelve thematic studies on educational issues
of global concern, prepared for the EFA 2000
Assessment, will be published in a revised format
in English and French. |
| |
|
|
All documents will be printed by October 2000
and will be widely disseminated to all EFA constituencies.
They will also be available on the Internet
address mentioned above. |
| |
|
|
| |
|
===========
|
| |
| |
|
|
| Contact:
Anne Muller (a.muller@unesco.org)
|
