Rich Countries Have Flunked the Education Test
The international donor community at Brussels announced their decision of giving US$400 million to seven countries of Africa and Latin America as part of the Education For All Fast Track initiative. But they did not provide enough clarity where the additional money will come from. Considering the glaring fact that there are 113 million children in the world out of school, Kailash Satyarthi, Chair of the Global Campaign for Education made a scathing remark that the rich countries have flunked the education test.
[ Read more about it in the GCE Press Release. ]

Education For All - Donor Consortium
The future of more than 16 million children in Africa and Latin America will be in the hands of western aid officials when they meet in Brussels on November 27 to decide the best way to finance a 'Fast Track' initiative in order to get the world's children into school. The 'Education For All Donor Consortium' meeting will be a litmus test of rich countries' support for the Millennium Development Goals.

2nd High-Level Group Meeting for EFA
At the first High-Level Group meeting last year, the participating Education Ministers, donors and civil society leaders pledged to move quickly on EFA promises. Included in their Communiqué was a clear decision to increase the funding for EFA and to establish a Global Initiative, a mechanism to coordinate fund flows. This year's meeting took a look at the progress made in the last year.
[ Read more about the High Level Group Meeting. ]

EFA Global Monitoring Report
Two years have passed since over 180 countries pledged to make education for all, a reality by the year 2015. The EFA Monitoring Report shows the progress or rather a lack of progress in all of six Dakar goals.
[ Read the draft outline of the EFA Global Monitring Report, 2002. ]

G8 Taskforce for Education Announced
The G8's special taskforce on education prepared a set of concrete recommendations including a resolution that G8 countries should budget additional funds for the EFA Action Plan launched by the World Bank earlier this year. The taskforce also recommended that the G8 should back the Bank's "fast track" initiative, which will channel new aid to countries that have sound plans for EFA.
[ Read the GCE position paper on World Bank Fast Track Initiative. ]

United Nations Girls Education Initiative (UNGEI)
UNGEI organised a meeting of UN and international and national NGO representatives to give equal opportunities in education to both the sexes. The session on "Bridging the Gaps" focused on how partner organisations and UNGEI can work together at the international and national levels to assist countries to meet the gender in education goals to which they had committed.
[ Check out the UNGEI Final Report. (downloadable as .doc document) ]

GCE High Level Meeting in Brussels
The GCE held a High Level Meeting in Brussels on the role of the EU in delivering the international education goals.It called on the EU policy makers to commit as a donor to ensure that enough aid was spend on education, so that no child in the developing world would be denied quality education through poverty.

G8 to Fast-Track EFA in 10 Countries
The World Bank said that it expected the G8 summit in Canada at the end of June to back the EFA Action Plan and announced $1bn in immediate fast-track funding for EFA. The first 10 countries to qualify for fast-tracking was announced in June at the G8 summit.
[ Click here to read a full report of the G8 Education Task Force. ]

UNGASS
The Education For All (EFA) Action Plan represents the best chance in a generation to provide a quality education to all the world's children. At the UN Special Session for Children, the Global Campaign for Education called on world leaders to take five steps to bring the EFA Action Plan to life, and make 2002 a historic turning point for children.
[ Check out the full report of the UN Special Session for Children. (downloadable as "pdf" document) ]

Third Annual Global Action Week for Education Celebrated
Third Annual Global Action Week for Education was celebrated to marshal the cause of education for all children. Through the Week of Action a loud and clear message was send to governments that now, more than ever, is the time to make sure that all children are "free to learn" (and can "learn to be free") by investing in free, quality basic education.
[ Click here to read more about the celebrations of the Global Action week. ]

UN Conference on Financing for Development
It would cost around 30 US cents per child per day to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on education. Even these goals fall short of the goals established by the World Education Forum in Dakar in April 2000. Mobilising support for the education for all goals through the FfD process is vital.
[ For further details check out GCE's Position Paper on FfD. ]

The Leadership Training Seminar for Teachers' Unions
The Leadership Training Seminar for Teachers' Unions organised by Education International, our partner in the Global Campaign for Education as well as in the Global March, met in New Delhi. It was aimed at making teachers unions in SAARC region aware of the main components of the Dakar Framework for Action.

World Social Forum
The Global Campaign for Education travelled to Porto Allegre to participate in the World Social Forum and promote free, quality education for all. The GCE demanded free and quality education, including an end to all school user fees such as book, lunch, and uniform fees.
[ Click at the official website of World Social Forum for more information. ]

UNESCO's Education Monitoring Report
The Global March participated actively in the first meeting of the editorial board for UNESCO's Education Monitoring Report, held in Paris. The communiqué issued for the meeting recommended that a monitoring system be established to assess the extent to which the international community has been fulfilling its Dakar commitments.
[ Read the full text of the Monitoring Report on Education For All.]

NGOs Denounce FfD Text as "Absolutely Inadequate
"NGOs were left reeling when governments agreed an outcome document for the Financing for Development Conference that sidelined all the key NGO demands.Final preparatory negotiations for the conference ended with the announcement of a new text (the "Monterrey Consensus") that made no commitments to increase aid or deepen debt relief.