This is from the Guardian. Have a great reading.
******************************************************************************
******************
Oxfam lashes Blair for lack of global leadership
Education Unlimited
Charlotte Denny
Saturday March 11, 2000
Tony Blair was accused yesterday of failing to take the lead in tackling the
growing crisis in third world education with only weeks to go before a key UN
conference aimed at getting 125m of the world's poorest children back into
the classroom.
Hopes of the British prime minister attending the conference at the end of
this month in Dakar, Senegal, have faded.
Yesterday Oxfam, which is leading a campaign for an $8bn (£5.1bn) global
action plan to tackle the crisis, said the prime minister was not providing
the level of international leadership on education that the chancellor,
Gordon Brown, had shown on managing third world debt.
"His leadership could make a real difference. He has so far failed to act and
we are running out of time," said Kevin Watkins, a spokesperson for Oxfam.
"Unfortunately, education seems to be the number one issue at home, but not
overseas."
The Dakar forum marks the 10th anniversary of the international pledge on
universal primary education, which was supposed to have been achieved this
year but has now been moved back to 2015.
Oxfam says even the 2015 target is doubtful, and it has called on Mr Blair to
put the education crisis on the agenda of July's meeting of the group of
eight leading economies in Osaka.
In response, a Downing Street spokesperson said: "We will be doing everything
we can do to get education in the developing world on the agenda at Osaka,
but the presidency rests with the Japanese and they have their own concerns
and priorities."
He added: "We will be playing a leading role at Dakar. We see education as an
absolutely vital development issue. We are committed to universal primary
education by 2015."
But the latest draft plan of action for Dakar reveals that the international
community has failed to increase its funding for third world education.
The plan, which does little more than state broad principles for action, has
been dismissed by Oxfam, which describes it as an "affront" to the millions
of children being denied the right to an education.
"This is precisely the sort of bureaucratic, half-baked thinking that
threatens to turn the Dakar conference into high farce," said Mr Watkins. "We
are being asked to accept a plan of action that is devoid of funding
commitments and lacking in any strategy for achieving universal basic
education."
According to Oxfam's global action plan, western countries would raise
£2.53bn in increased aid and debt relief to help third world schools, while
developing countries would raise a similar amount through reducing military
spending.
The World Bank, the UN Development Programme and several EU governments -
including Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands - support Oxfam's proposals.
One proposal includes a special provision that calls for roughly 65% of the
money the west generates to be diverted to education in sub-Saharan Africa.
There are more children out of school in sub-Saharan Africa than there were
in 1990. And, if trends continue, there will be 57m children out of school by
2015.
Oxfam resigned from the Dakar conference's organising committee last month,
blaming "grossly inadequate" political leadership.
hkanteh
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
