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UN and Education |
September 2004 |
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FAO & UNESCO Call for Education for Rural People 1 |
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The Sustainable Development Department of the Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
(FAO) and the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) are inviting member
countries, United Nations agencies and civil
society to join in the establishment of a new partnership on Education for Rural
People within the International Alliance Against This new flagship is a call for a collaborative action to increase the coordination of efforts targeting the educational needs of rural people. The partnership is open to members committed to working separately and together to promote and facilitate a quality basic education for rural people. The partnership seeks to address rural-urban disparities, which are a serious concern to governments and the international community as a whole. About 70 per cent of the poor live in rural areas. Despite the fact that education is a basic right in itself and an essential prerequisite for reducing poverty, improving the living conditions of rural people and building a food-secure world, children's access to education in rural areas is still much lower than in urban areas, adult illiteracy is much higher and the quality of education is poorer. The flagship's objectives are to: * Build awareness on the importance of education for rural people as a crucial step to achieve the Millennium goals of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger and achieving universal primary education (www.un.org/millenniumgoals/) * Overcome the urban/rural education gap * Increase access to basic education for rural people * Improve the quality of basic education in rural areas * Foster the national capacity to plan and implement basic education plans to address the learning needs of rural people. ACTIVITIES At the national level * Technical support to countries willing to address the basic educational needs of the rural people by formulating specific plans of action as part of the national plans on Education for All. At the international level * Advocate and mobilize partnerships for education for rural people by concentrating on strategic global, regional and international events, and encouraging the same within countries. * Identify the capacity for different substantive components on education for rural people within partner institutions * Support the exchange of good practices and knowledge on education for rural people.
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WFP: Food for Education 2 |
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School feeding programmes are useful instruments for improving the educational status of food insecure children. They achieve this by ensuring that food insecure children have sufficient energy to concentrate on their studies and that resource strapped parents have additional incentive to send their children to school rather than work. Furthermore, school feeding programmes that target girls can help redress the gender inequalities by increasing the participation of girls in education. The individual and societal benefits of education are well known. Investments in this sector contribute toward economic growth, raised standards of living and improved quality of life. Furthermore, just as nutritional interventions can serve educational objectives, improvements in the educational status of women can help improve certain health indicators, particularly in the area of family health and nutrition. Over the course of the last 38 years, the United Nations World Food Programme has become the world's largest provider of school meals for poor children and one of the biggest promoters of girls' education. In 2000, the World Food Programme fed more than 12 million children in schools in 54 countries. As a result, girls' enrollment has increased as much as 300% in some areas. In 2003, the India Country Office of the World Food Programme launched Food For Education (FFE) to increase access to basic education, especially for girls, by developing a model for school feeding that would help state governments to improve the quality of their Mid-Day Meal programmes. Currently, FFE operates in 10 districts in 5 northern states where food insecurity, malnutrition, low educational achievements, and gender inequality are pronounced. In partnership with the Departments of Tribal Affairs and Education, PRIs and Village Education Committees, the World Food Programme provides 674,360 children in classes 1-8 with a mid-day fortified snack that represents approximately 25% of a child's daily caloric needs and around 50% of her Vitamin-A and iron requirements. Additionally, the World Food Programme provides dry take-home rations to approximately 140,000 girls in classes 4-8 who attend school more than 80% of the time. These rations comprise approximately 1/6 of a household's monthly cereal requirement and provide parents with a strong motivation to send their adolescent girls to school. At the same time, the FFE program has the flexibility and scope to employ food in innovative ways that promotes education. For example, WFP provides women with small food packages to provide them with the support to undertake literacy and skills development training.
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Educating Adolescents and Young people for Health and Empowerment: Cairo Consensus at Ten 3 |
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Policy makers, managers of educational institutions, social activists and parents are realizing the need for good quality education as an investment for human and national development. Investing in young people's health, education and skills development, and allowing girls to stay in school and marry later, are considered essential to meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) related to eradicating poverty and hunger, gender equality, reducing maternal and child mortality, combating HIV/AIDS and empowering women. Ten years after 179 countries adopted the landmark agreement
at the International Conference on Population and Development,
in Cairo and nearly halfway to its 2015 completion target, important
gains have been made. ICPD gave unprecedented attention
to adolescents' diverse needs with regard to reproductive health,
as both a human rights priority and a practical necessity. The
Programme of Action recognized that poor educational and
economic opportunities, gender-based violence, early pregnancy
and sexual exploitation increase the vulnerability of
adolescents, especially girls, to reproductive health risks. It urged
governments to ensure that all adolescents have access to
age-appropriate reproductive health information, education, and services,
respecting their right to privacy and confidentiality. According to A comprehensive approach to youth programming has emerged as a global consensus in the past few years. It links reproductive health interventions to efforts for providing adolescents with choices and options through investments in education, job training and citizenship development. Another priority is to increase the voice and participation of young people in health and development decisions and in the broader life of their communities. Nearly all countries have introduced health education, including life skills, into the school curricula and programmes designed for out-of-school youth. School-based programmes started off with population education and family life education programmes introduced in various school levels from primary to secondary levels. Funded by UNFPA, most of these programmes were demography-oriented focusing on the interrelationships between population growth and various aspects of quality of life. Gradually, contents on reproductive and sexual health were incorporated such as those dealing with risky behaviour, sexual violence, family planning, responsible parenthood, STD/HIV/AIDS, social aspects of sexuality education, gender equity, and boy-girl relationships. The gradual introduction of Adolescent Reproductive and Sexual Health (ARSH) contents were deliberately included in order not to alienate the sector of society that has articulated their misgivings and could eventually jeopardize the full acceptance of such programmes. Life skills approach is being promoted to build thinking, social and negotiation skills of adolescents to develop them as well informed, responsible and gender-sensitive individuals. Despite global trends towards later marriages, 82 million girls in developing countries who are now between ages 10 and 17 will be married before their 18th birthday (State of World Population Report 2004). Early marriage and teenage pregnancies are concerns that need to be addressed in developing countries. Young people aged 15-24 account for half of all new HIV infection _ one every 14 seconds- with young women especially at risk. Adolescents are sexually active before marriage often without the knowledge or means to protect themselves. Access to youth-friendly services is important for married and unmarried adolescents. Over 90 per cent countries responding to the 2003 UNFPA global survey reported having taken some action to provide adolescents with access to reproductive health care. Most of the services have been designed on a small scale and many are run by NGOs. However, even where services are available, adolescents face several barriers. A major challenge is to scale up good programmes through creating an enabling environment, securing resources and commitments from various stakeholders. Opportunities are now available for learning from various programmatic experiences globally. There is need for documenting and sharing experiences of various initiatives. Adolescent reproductive health has become an emerging worldwide concern. The tenth anniversary of the ICPD is an opportunity for governments, the international community and civil society to renew their commitments to adolescent health and development.
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