THE STATE OF THE WORLD'S CHILDREN 2004 - Unicef

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Despite these commitments, the ideal of universal education remains unfulfilled and gender gaps persist until today. The 2005 target date for gender parity is attached not only to the Millennium Development Goals, but to the goals that were first put forth at the World Conference on Education For All in Jomtien, Thailand in 1990, and then reaffirmed at the 2000 World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal. Here, too, girls’ education was afforded first attention: “The most urgent priority is to ensure access to, and improve the quality of education for girls and women, and to remove every obstacle that hampers their active participation….” 3 So it is that for more than a decade, the Education For All (EFA) campaign, led by UNESCO, has embraced a mission that includes both advocacy and “a sense of accountability towards commitments.” 4 Through its Global Monitoring Reports, EFA assesses individual countries’ yearly progress and champions educational policies that will increase enrolment rates and success in school. In its 2002 Report, EFA noted that although 86 countries have already achieved gender parity in primary enrolment, and another 36 appear close to meeting that goal, 31 countries, the majority of which are located in sub-Saharan Africa, are at high risk of not achieving the goal by 2015. 5 Following Dakar, 13 agencies formed the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative (see Box 1) in the EFA spirit to mount a “sustained campaign to improve the quality and availability of girls’ education” that works at both the help all countries eliminate gender disparity in education by 2005, with a special focus on 25 of the countries that are judged to be most at risk of failing to achieve this goal, including 8 West African countries. Among the 25 countries chosen are 10 with more than a million girls out of school, 8 with a net enrolment rate for girls of less than 40 per cent and 13 with a gender gap higher than 10 per cent. sense of national responsibility and concern about girls who are denied their right to schooling. Secondly, girls’ education will be treated as a case for urgent – even emergency – action. Country offices will be proactive, identifying out-ofschool girls and providing schooling for them. The aim is to develop a package of intensive interventions that will produce results much more quickly than if business had continued as usual. Pilot projects that have proved successful at local level will be rolled out on as large a scale as possible. New staff will be recruited to form action teams who will pull out all the stops over the next two years to mobilize girls’ enrolment. So what will happen in these selected countries? Firstly, UNICEF will need to win the argument for acceleration at the national and local levels. If girls’ education is to become an urgent national priority it will certainly mean involving the country’s leader, making him or her both an advocate for and an agent of change. It will be equally important to win over local community leaders and use their statements to promote girls’ enrolment in and attendance at school. It will mean seizing every possible opportunity to advance the case, to mobilize enthusiasm and resources, and involve the media, private companies and local communities in promoting a The 25 selected countries fulfilled one or more of the following five criteria: low enrolment rates for girls; gender gaps of more than 10 per cent in primary education; countries with more than 1 million girls out of school; countries included on the World Bank’s Education For All Fast Track Initiative; and countries hard hit by a range of crises that affect school opportunities for girls, such as HIV/AIDS and conflict. Afghanistan Bangladesh Benin Bhutan Bolivia Burkina Faso Central African Republic Chad Democratic Republic of the Congo Djibouti Eritrea Ethiopia Guinea India Malawi Mali Nepal Nigeria Pakistan Papua New Guinea Sudan Turkey United Republic of Tanzania Yemen Zambia 4 TO JUMP-START DEVELOPMENT
global and country levels 6 (see Panel on Egypt, page 19). It is in its capacity as lead agency of this Initiative that UNICEF embraces the urgency of the 2005 Millennium Development Goal to eliminate gender disparity in education. These commitments to universal education and eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005 were avowed once again by the Heads of States and Government who convened at the UN General Assembly Special Session on Children in May 2002 and pledged to make education for all children an essential part of building a ‘World Fit for Children’. Despite decades of attention to the issue, some 121 million children are out of school, and 65 million of them are girls. (See Box 2 on BOX 1 UNITED NATIONS GIRLS’ EDUCATION INITIATIVE 1. International Labour Organization 2. Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS 3. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 4. United Nations Children’s Fund 5. United Nations Development Fund for Women 6. United Nations Development Group 7. United Nations Development Programme 8. United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs 9. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization 10. United Nations Population Fund 11. World Bank 12. World Food Programme 13. World Health Organization Each of the 25 countries starts from a different place in terms of educational provision, cultural context and the position of women and girls in society, and will have to tailor its accelerated programme accordingly. There is a rich and wide range of practical measures that can be adopted and adapted. Among them are: operating double shifts in existing schools; making small rural schools viable through multigrade teaching; opening schools in tents or under trees, using the ‘school-in-abox’ kits that UNICEF has developed for use in emergencies; expanding, improving and winning official recognition for existing non-formal education schemes; and providing mobile schools for remote rural populations and transient or nomadic groups. The success of the 25 by 2005 initiative depends primarily on the extent to which national governments respond to it as an opportunity. UNICEF’s role is to accompany governments on the road to gender equality in education. This is a new idea that seeks to transcend the well-established framework of partnership. It recognizes that national governments need to take the lead, but also acknowledges that they may need assistance beyond the provision of funds or the monitoring of progress. The concept of accompanying a country involves long-term support with a ‘total resource package’. It means being there through thick and thin, without being unduly obtrusive or trying to dictate. It means sharing and empathizing with the vision and objectives of the country, yet being constructive with both support and advocacy for change where needed. It is about being involved in the dayto-day decisions and problem-solving difficulties that national officials and local communities will invariably face throughout this journey. It is about walking the distance with a country – and if necessary going the extra mile. Investing in girls’ education today… is a strategy that will protect the rights of all children to quality education…and a strategy that will jump-start all other development goals. THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN 2004 5
Page 1 and 2: THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN
Page 5 and 6: 4 THE MULTIPLIER EFFECT OF EDUCATIN
Page 7 and 8: FOREWORD Within a family, there are
Page 9 and 10: In the Millennium Declaration of Se
Page 11: The most urgent goal of all More im
Page 15 and 16: children out of school). At any mom
Page 17 and 18: Parents often do not realize that g
Page 19 and 20: that is needed to overcome the obst
Page 21 and 22: have acknowledged that education is
Page 25 and 26: Education is everybody’s human ri
Page 27 and 28: The multiplier effect. Education ha
Page 29 and 30: This view of growth as central to d
Page 31 and 32: ment that was born of it, recognize
Page 33 and 34: gling with the decision as to wheth
Page 35 and 36: le jeopardy: because of their gende
Page 39 and 40: What is the scale of the problem th
Page 41 and 42: mostly report on averages and thus
Page 43 and 44: learning achievement. In many cases
Page 45 and 46: that have achieved gender parity is
Page 47 and 48: FIGURE 9 CHILDREN’S OPINIONS ON G
Page 49 and 50: There are recent, tentatively hopef
Page 53 and 54: The benefits of educating girls are
Page 55 and 56: that such programmes establish the
Page 57 and 58: in Zambia fell by almost half among
Page 59 and 60: HIV/AIDS prevention strategies. Som
Page 61 and 62: Tree Initiative in several other co
Page 63 and 64:
if the extra income is channelled t
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THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN
Page 67 and 68:
Making schools and education system
Page 69 and 70:
having boys look after family cattl
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as boys achieved better results in
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graduated have gained significant s
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In Brazil, too, boys’ problems wi
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Girls’ education is a dream inves
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go to school was overwhelming. UNIC
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the outcome would be better for all
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BOX 6 BUDGETS AND HUMAN RIGHTS A hu
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An unfinished piece of 20th century
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While one cannot assume that all wo
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Enabling young mothers to return to
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community meeting, where women disc
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ANNEX B THE HUMAN RIGHTS- BASED APP
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In addition, it is essential that 1
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27. Spogárd, René and Meril James
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94. Zarchin, Jill, Tin Mar Aung and
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General note on the data The data p
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TABLE 1. BASIC INDICATORS Countries
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TABLE 1. BASIC INDICATORS Under-5 m
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TABLE 2. NUTRITION Countries and te
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TABLE 2. NUTRITION % of infants wit
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TABLE 3. HEALTH Countries and terri
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TABLE 3. HEALTH % of population usi
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TABLE 4. HIV/AIDS Countries and ter
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TABLE 4. HIV/AIDS Adult prevalence
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TABLE 5. EDUCATION Countries and te
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TABLE 5. EDUCATION Countries and te
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TABLE 6. DEMOGRAPHIC INDICATORS Cou
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TABLE 6. DEMOGRAPHIC INDICATORS Pop
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TABLE 7. ECONOMIC INDICATORS Countr
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TABLE 7. ECONOMIC INDICATORS GNI pe
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TABLE 8. WOMEN Countries and territ
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TABLE 8. WOMEN Life expectancy: fem
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TABLE 9. CHILD PROTECTION Child lab
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Regional summaries Regional average
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TABLE 10. THE RATE OF PROGRESS Coun
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TABLE 10. THE RATE OF PROGRESS Unde
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INDEX Afghanistan, 4, 73-75 Africa,
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and budgets, 77 and economic develo
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United Nations Development Assistan
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UNICEF Offices UNICEF Headquarters
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THE STATE OF THE WORLD'S CHILDREN 2004 - Unicef

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