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| Greece, 20 April | Nigeria, 20 April | Portugal, 20 April |
| Past Issue - December 2004 News Note: Most hyperlinks will open in a new window. Please close the new window in order to be automatically returned to the GCE site. EDUCATION TO END CHILD LABOUR Poverty cannot be eradicated without eliminating child labour. It will not be eradicated without achieving education for all children. These were the main messages from the roundtable, organised by Global March Against Child Labour, UNESCO and the World Bank in Brasilia on 8 November, as one of the side events to the meeting of the High-level Group on EFA. Free, compulsory education of high quality, is the most effective, preventive, curative and sustainable strategy to end child labour, according to the participants. http://www.unesco.org/education/efa/index.shtml 8 December 2004 GCE WORLD ASSEMBLY: NEW BOARD ELECTED, MOVE TO SOUTH AFRICA ANNOUNCED The second ever GCE World Assembly took place in Johannesburg from Dec 2-4. Delegates passed resolutions on campaign issues ranging from quality of education to HIV/AIDS, and elected a new Executive Board which will guide campaign actions for the next 3 years. Delegates also approved plans to move the GCE Secretariat office from Brussels to Johannesburg early next year. The New Board members are: President-Kailash Satyarthi (Global March Against Child Labour); Chair – Elie Jouen (Education International); Charles Abani (Actionaid International); Rasheda Chowdhury (CAMPE Bangladesh); Camilla Croso (National Campaign for the Right to Education, Brazil); Owain James (Oxfam International); Maria Khan (ASPBAE); Solly Mabusela (SANGOCO); Cleophas Mally (Global March Against Child Labour); Assibi Napoe (Education International); Pedro Pontual (CEAAL); Gorgui Sow (ANCEFA). Finally, the GCE expressed appreciation to two outgoing Board members (Takafumi Miyake and Tom Bediako) and one outgoing member of staff (Emmanuel Fatoma) for their dedication and enormous contribution to the GCE’s success. 8 December 2004 ONE BILLION CHILDREN DENIED THEIR RIGHTS, SAYS UNICEF New York: UNICEF today launched its annual State of the World’s Children report focusing on how poverty, conflict and HIV/AIDS rob children of the promise of childhood laid down in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Some 1 billion children are denied their basic rights to education, health care, nutrition and other essential requirements for healthy development, the report claims. Commenting on the report, UNICEF's Executive Director Carol Bellamy called on both national governments and donor nations to invest more in services that benefit children. “Giving children a good start in education and in health is an investment that is repaid many times as children grow to be adults, provide leadership in their communities and raise their own children,” she said. Download the summary or full report from http://www.unicef.org/sowc05/english/press.html 9 December, 2004 WORLD AIDS DAY: ACTIVISTS HOLD WORLD BANK/IMF ‘DIE-IN’ WASHINGTON (IPS): A range of global justice, faith-based, and AIDS advocacy organizations marked World AIDS Day with a “die-in” outside the World Bank and IMF to demand full debt cancellation for all impoverished nations and an end to budget austerity measures that hinder the ability of poor countries to respond to the HIV/AIDS crisis. Spokesperson Marie Clarke Brill of Africa Action said, “Increasingly, in Africa and around the world, AIDS has a woman’s face. If we are to turn the tide of this pandemic, we need to promote strategies that will address the gender inequalities that leave women most vulnerable to HIV/AIDS. Instead, the policies of the World Bank and IMF continue to undermine women’s health globally.” Roberto Savio, IPS soros@topica.email-publisher.com 1 December 2004 ACTION WEEK 2005 FINAL DEADLINE Coalitions or national committees wishing to order free materials and/or apply for a small grant for the 2005 Global Action Week on EFA, “Education to End Poverty”, must register their participation and submit relevant forms by the 10th January. The deadline will not be extended again. Small grants are not open to single organisations but only to a coalition, consortium or committee bringing together a range of participating organisations. Please contact Jo Walker at actionweek@campaignforeducation.org. GATS FREE EUROPE CAMPAIGN GATHERS MOMENTUM A campaign to stop any further WTO negotiations on the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), started by ATTAC local committees in France, is gathering momentum, according to the latestTradEducation update from EI. So far some 560 towns, departments and regions have declared themselves GATS-free zones and are calling on the European Commission to declare a moratorium on further GATS negotiations. The campaign is spreading to Austria, Belgium, Italy and Spain. There is no reason for the campaign to stop at the EU borders and Education International has urged all member unions to start similar actions. EI's update also gives detailed information on the intensive GATS negotiations that will take place during the WTO "services weeks" in February 2005 and explains how these negotiations could affect education systems and educators. Download Dec 2004 TradEducation update in full Download Dec 2004 TradEducation update in French: Word format or PDF format Sign the Education Out of GATS petition on the GATSWatch site - http://www.gatswatch.org/ 8 December 2004 NEW EDUCATION JOURNAL OFFERS FREE ONLINE ACCESS The Journal of Education for International Development (JEID) is a new online open-access journal for education professionals working in international development worldwide. The inaugural issue is forthcoming in 2005 and will contain papers from the recent meeting of the UNESCO International Working Group on Education on governance and decentralization in education. JEID is also accepting papers for two thematically focused issues :
8 December 2004 FTI COULD EXPAND TO OVER 50 COUNTRIES BY 2006 Over the next two years, the Fast Track Initiative could expand to include more than 50 countries, according to the FTI secretariat's report from the recent partners' meeting in Brasilia. Up to 26 countries could join next year alone, providing donors are willing to commit the additional resources needed to support their plans for accelerated action on EFA. The Brasilia meeting agreed that donors collaborating through FTI should make it their common cause to "mobilize significantly higher levels of aid for education that will be required for countries with sound education policies and sector programs" and to "ensure that schools provide a quality education so that parents will want to keep their children there." Pressed by GCE representatives, Ms. Adelaide Sosseh and Ms. Rasheda Chowdhury to expand FTI beyond formal primary schooling, donors in Brasilia affirmed the need to link FTI to the EFA framework and to balanced sector plans. "We welcome the commitment by donors to scale up the FTI," said GCE chairperson Kailash Satyarthi, "but we call on them to translate this commitment into money on the table now. Bold new funding pledges are needed so that countries can plan in the full confidence that serious efforts will be supported with equally serious resources." Download FTI Newsletter (Dec 2004) in full 7 December 2004 4 MILLION CHILDREN TAKE PART IN THE LESSON FOR LIFE The World's Biggest Lesson organised by GCE in 2003 continues to inspire activists. On World Aids Day, 1st December, more than 4 million children in 67 countries took part in the Lesson for Life organised by the Global Movement for Children (www.gmfc.org) to highlight the rights of young people to the information and services they need to protect themselves from HIV/AIDs and the rights of all those affected by HIV/AIDs to proper treatment and care. GMFC and its members have pledged to advance children's rights to free quality education, health, and water, and to fight against the legacy of unfair debt that leaves countries like Zambia spending more on debt repayments than they do on education of their own children. Both GMFC and GCE are members of the Global Call for Action Against Poverty which is calling for more aid, debt cancellation and fair trade. 5 December 2004 ©2004 GCE You are welcome to reproduce items from the GCE E-News for any non-profit use, as long as you credit GCE together with any original source mentioned in the article. |
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