UNESCO Launches New Global Partnership For Girls And Women’s Education

World leaders and corporate heads gathered at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris on May 26, 2011 to launch the New Global Partnership for Girls and Women’s Education.  The new initiative will not only address concerns about the education and literacy of young girls, but also work towards gender equality and empowerment of women.  The importance of the high-level panel was stressed by the attendance of many world leaders and the announcement of key corporate partnerships.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon commented on the significance of the initiative and how education is a right that many young girls and women are still not privileged to. “The new Global Partnership we are launching today focuses on two key points: secondary education and literacy […] These are critical in a world where girls and women lag behind men and boys when it comes to school, literacy and research,” said Ban Ki-moon. Other participants included UNESCO’s Director General Irina Bokova, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, founder and chairman of the Aga Khan Development Network Foundation Aga Khan, and senior representatives from corporate partners – including Microsoft, Apple, Procter and Gamble, Nokia, GEMS Education and the Packard Foundation.

The partnership theme of the panel, “Better Life, Better Future,” set the stage for talks between the corporate and world leaders, working toward creating global advocacy for gender equality.  This year UNESCO reported an estimated 39 million girls were still not enrolled in primary or secondary school, while two thirds of the world’s 796 million illiterate adults are women.  United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged leaders not only to do the right thing but the smart thing, “no society can achieve its full potential when half of the population is denied the opportunity to achieve theirs.”

While some projects through the partnership have already launched in Africa and Asia, UNESCO hopes to work and focus on creating a healthy environment for young girls to attend school and receive an education.  The Director General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova addressed the panel reminding listeners of the events on the 25^th of January in Cairo when young women across the country came out into the streets demanding “human rights, justice and dignity.”  The world is changing at an increasing pace and while more women take the world stage, the struggle to achieve equality around the world becomes increasingly important.  Bokova recalled a moment sixteen years prior while as a young diplomat at the United Nations 4^th World Conference on Women in Beijing a speech Secretary Clinton made where she stated, “women’s rights are human rights and human rights are women’s rights,” saying they still resonate today.