Literacy and UN Millennium Development Goals
In September 2000 world leaders met at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, to find a way to eradicate the extreme poverty in the world. They came up with the UN Millennium Declaration and its eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to be reached by the year 2015.
“Eradicating extreme poverty continues to be one of the main challenges of our time, and is a major concern of the international community. Ending this scourge will require the continued efforts of all governments, civil society organizations and the private sector, in the context of a stronger and more effective global partnership for development. The MD Goals set timebound targets, by which progress in reducing income poverty, hunger, disease, lack of adequate shelter and exclusion while promoting gender equality, health, education and environmental sustainability can be measured. They also embody basic human rights – the rights of each person on the planet, to health, education, shelter and security.” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
The eight goals are:
1 Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2 Achieve universal primary education
3 Promote gender equality and empower women
4 Reduce child mortality
5 Improve maternal health
6 Combat HIV/ AIDS, Malaria and other diseases
7 Ensure environmental sustainability
8. Develop a Global partnership for development
Goal two covers literacy and is closely linked to goal three. Statistics show that achieving female literacy is the single most powerful tool to eradicate poverty. Yet in many parts of the world, literacy figures for women are far lower than for men.
A few facts
* Today, nearly 17% of the world’s adult population is still not literate; two thirds of them are women, making gender equality even harder to achieve.
* 67.4 million children are out of school. 123 million youth (aged 15 to 24) lack basic reading and writing skills. 61 per cent of them are young women.
* In 37 of 38 countries with data, youth literacy rates (for the population 15-24 years) were higher than adult literacy rates in 2010, the latest year with data, reflecting increased access to primary and secondary education among younger generations
* More than 1.5 billion people in the world live on less than one dollar a day, and the majority are women.
* Some 775 million adults lack minimum literacy skills; literacy for all thus remains elusive.
* Globally, there were 95 literate young women for every 100 young men in 2010, compared with 90 women in 1990.
The World Bank states that education is one of the most powerful instruments for reducing poverty and inequality and it lays a foundation for sustained economic growth.
Education for All
Education for All was a UN initiative, which was launched in Jomtien, Thailand in 1990, aimed at bringing the benefits of education “to every citizen in every country.” To achieve this, a broad coalition of governments, civil society and development agencies, including UNESCO and the World Bank, committed to achieving six specific education goals. Little progress was made and in 2000 two of the goals were included in the MDGs. Education for All is critical for achieving all eight of the MDGs.
Of the children that aren’t in school right now, the majority of them are girls. Women make up more than two-thirds of the world’s illiterate adults. Girls may be kept out of school to help with household chores, they may be pulled from school if their father deems it’s time for them to marry, or there may only be enough money to educate one child from the family, and the boy assumes the responsibility.
And yet…
Numerous studies show that educating girls is a key factor in eliminating poverty and aiding development. Girls who complete school are less likely to marry young, more likely to have smaller families have better health outcomes. These women also go on to earn higher salaries, which they then invest in their own families, thus ensuring that future generations of girls get to go on to school – thus solving many of the problems in the MDGs.
Unlike many of the UN Agreements and Declarations, Conference Statements and Commitments, which are only too often signed and then forgotten, it seems that the MDGs offer a practical way to achieve some progress. Slowly, slowly they may even in the end at least help to eradicate some of today’s global poverty.
I would like to end with a quote from a former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan:
“Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope. It is a tool for daily life in modern society. It is a bulwark against poverty, and a building block of development, an essential complement to investments in roads, dams, clinics and factories. Literacy is a platform for democratization, and a vehicle for the promotion of cultural and national identity. Especially for girls and women, it is an agent of family health and nutrition. For everyone, everywhere, literacy is, along with education in general, a basic human right…. Literacy is, finally, the road to human progress and the means through which every man, woman and child can realize his or her full potential.”
Compiled from UN documents by Joanna Koch
Joanna Koch is a long time MM Team member and represents the Associated Country Women of the World at the UN in Geneva.
Illustration by Laura Munteanu
