  
77 million children are out of school today - including 44 million girls. It is estimated that at the current rate of progress at least 75 countries, mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa, will not achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of universal primary education by 2015. In order to ensure that the target for the education MDG for all boys and girls alike, to complete a full course of primary schooling by 2015 is met, enrolment of all children will have to take place by 2009. With the countdown to that year drawing nearer, World Bank President - Paul Wolfowitz, EC Commissioner for Development - Louis Michel and UK Chancellor – Gordon Brown convened a high level Conference in Brussels to accelerate progress towards the education MDG. The objective of the conference was to seekconcrete proposals and commitments from donors and recipient countries for action to deliver on the promise to give all the world's children a full primary education by 2015. The Conference resulted in announcements of increased funding for education from a range of donors. The European Commission committed 1.7 billion Euros to Education from the 10th European Development Fund (2007 – 2010) and the EC budget plus 22 Million Euro for the Education for All Fast Track Initiative (EfA FTI). The United Kingdom pledged to spend 11.2 billion Euros (15 billion USD) on the Education for All goals, as well as an additional 740 million Euros in support of Ethiopia’s and Tanzania’s 10-year Education plans. The World Bank announced that its investment of 1.12 billion Euros (1.5 billion USD) in 2007, which will continue into 2008, in education plans in the 68 poorest countries in the world – an increase of 50% compared to the annual level of the past five years. Germany declared an extra 8 Million Euros to EfA FTI, with Japan adding a further 1.8 Million Euros (2.4 Million USD). New donors such as the Soros Foundation also promised an investment of 3.7 Million Euros (5 Million USD) in support of Liberia’s Education plans conditional on other donors' commitments. The Conference also put forward ideas on improving the quality of aid to education such as by upgrading statistics and data on spending on education at country level, better measuring results and strengthening evaluation systems, building local capacity in the education sector and improving the division of labour among donors to improve aid allocation. To find all relevant information about the event please go to: http://www.promises-on-education.org/ where you will find the Programme, Press Releases, speeches...etc |
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