| UNESCO warns aid shortfalls are undermining education MDGs in Africa |
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The July 11 summit has been convened by South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma to coincide with the final match of the World Cup, in order to promote the efforts of FIFA and the 1Goal campaign to resolve Africa’s education crisis. “Education is Africa’s most powerful antidote to poverty,” said UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova. “Leaders must seize this occasion to put their full support behind providing Africa’s children with a quality education.” “The World Cup is an illustration of Africa’s energy, spirit and hope,” said Ms. Bokova. “Let us also ensure that it has a tangible, lasting legacy for its children,” she added. According to UNESCO’s Education for All Global Monitoring Report, aid levels to basic education in sub-Saharan Africa actually dropped from $1.72 billion in 2007 to $1.65 billion in 2008, despite the pledges made by donors at the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal ten years ago that this would not be allowed to happen. UNESCO stresses that great progress has been made in education in Africa despite the funding shortfalls, pointing to Benin, Ethiopia and Tanzania as examples of countries which have achieved major increases in primary school enrolment and school building. However, the Global Monitoring Report estimates that sub-Saharan African countries need around $11 billion annually to achieve the goal of universal education, vastly more than is now being given. “Donors have to come up with new finance,” said Kevin Watkins, director of the report. “They need to act fast. We are now just one primary school generation away from a broken promise to Africa’s children.” Source:  |
The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) warned leaders attending the World Cup education summit in Pretoria on Sunday 11 July that a lack of funding is threatening to derail the progress made so far by African countries towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on education, including the goal to bring the 32 million children in Africa who are currently out of school back into education.
