Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan on the first day of the 2008 G8 Summit in Toyako, Japan, UNESCO Director-General Mr Koïchiro Matsuura urged G8 leaders to deliver on their previous commitments to education, despite other pressing issues such as global warming, rising oil prices and the world food crisis.
In an opinion article published in the 7 July edition of French daily newspaper Le Figaro, Mr Matsuura strongly argued that progress to achieve universal primary education, address teacher shortages and reduce adult illiteracy could be significantly advanced if the rich countries of the world lived up to their pledges made in 2000 and since – including the promise to help ensure a good-quality education for every child on the planet.
Remarking on the shortfall in aid to basic education during the last few years, Mr Matsuura also noted that the forthcoming aid is not targeted at the countries and populations most in need. The UN Secretary General’s Africa Working Group says that about 75 per cent of aid needed to basic education – around US $ 8 billion – should be directed to Africa alone. Donors, therefore, must urgently live up to their promises and scale-up their funding, Mr Matsuura asserted, for even if recent pledges are met, aid will still only reach around half of what is currently needed annually.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon issued a similar statement asserting that the interconnected adversities faced by the world today - food, climate and development crises –need to be addressed holistically if the Millennium Development Goals are to be achieved by 2015.
