INTERNATIONAL MEET ON EDUCATION FOR ALL

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A High-Level Group (HLG) on Education for All (EFA) has been set up by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) to monitor the progress towards the achievement of goals set up in Dakar, Senegal, in April 2000. This year, the Ministry of Human Resource Development is organising the High Level Group (HLG) meeting on " DAKAR ". It is scheduled to be held on November 10-12, 2003 at New Delhi in association with UNESCO.

The HLG is mandated by the Dakar Framework for Action to serve as a lever for political commitment and technical and financial resource mobilisation. The HLG has the primary responsibility for driving the EFA process forward, strengthen partnerships, identify priorities, gaps and needs, and highlight the resources to be mobilised.

The Director –General of UNESCO convenes the meeting annually. It consists of Heads of States and Ministers of select countries, representatives of the major UN and other multilateral and bilateral donor agencies, educational experts and NGOs. The HLG brings together some thirty participants from four constituencies — Ministers of Education from the developing countries, Ministers of International Development Co-operation/Foreign Affairs from the developed countries, heads of multilateral/bilateral agencies and civil society representatives. The articipants are invited on a rotating basis while ensuring continuity as well as regional and gender balance. The list of participants is influenced by major challenges in achieving EFA (HIV/AIDS in Africa and child labour in South Asia) and the perceived ability of individuals in contributing to an informed and inter-active debate on the issues under consideration.

High level participants can be accompanied by aides. But observers are not admitted.

Overview

At the first HLG meeting of UNESCO in Paris in October 2001 the full participation of all EFA partners, including 18 Ministers of Education and Development Cooperation, participated. The programme for the first meeting of the HLG was built around three critical areas - political commitment, resource mobilization, civil society participation and partnerships.
The second meeting of the HLG on EFA (Abuja, Nigeria, 19-20 November 2002) was held in the heart of sub-Saharan Africa, a region where the prospects of reaching the DAKAR goals are the most challenging. The organisation, structure, design and outcomes of the meeting benefited from consultations with major EFA partners and through a representative group of Sherpas from Nepal. The well-attended inaugural public session was addressed by President Obasanjo of Nigeria and President Compaore of Burkina Faso. The participants included 15 Ministers of Education and Development Cooperation, six representatives of multilateral and bilateral agencies and four representatives of civil society organisations.
The third meeting on EFA in New Delhi will be co-chaired by UNESCO’s Director-General and the host Minister, Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi. The meeting will take into account the experience of the previous HLG meetings and the concerns regarding the political impact of the Group.
The agenda of the New Delhi meeting will be closely aligned to the 2003 EFA Global Monitoring Report on the theme of gender and EFA. On the basis of the findings of the Monitoring Report, the High-Level group will discuss appropriate policy responses and strategies to accelerate the progress on education of girls and women to eliminate gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005.

The expected outcomes of the HLG include maintaining global political momentum and mobilising resources for realising EFA goals; developing International Action Plan for the elimination of gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005; reviewing the progress towards achieving the Dakar goals, identifying key challenges and setting strategies and priorities and assessing the extent to which the international commitments made at Dakar and after are met and agreeing on ways to fulfil these.

The important links to know more about the meet are- http://www.education.nic.in, http://www.unesco.org and http://www.tourismofindia.com.(PIB Features)