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Initiatives to Expand Access to Basic Education and Improve Childhood Development in Poor Countries
THE CLINTON-GORE ADMINISTRATION: BUILDING A
STRONGER GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT THROUGH SUPPORT FOR
BASIC EDUCATION AND CHILDHOOD NUTRITION
JULY 23, 2000
TODAY, PRESIDENT CLINTON ANNOUNCED NEW INITIATIVES TO EXPAND ACCESS
TO BASIC EDUCATION AND IMPROVE CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT IN POOR COUNTRIES.
Part of the Okinawa Summit's unprecedented emphasis on international
development, these measures include:
A new $300 million U.S. Department of Agriculture international
school nutrition pilot program to improve student enrollment, attendance, and
performance in poor countries.
Endorsement by the G-8 of key international "Education for All"
goals, including the principle that no country with a strong national action
plan to achieve universal access to primary education by 2015 should be
permitted to fail for lack of resources.
A new commitment by the World Bank to double lending for basic
education in poor countries --- an estimated additional $1 billion per year.
A FY 2001 Administration request to increase funding for
international basic education assistance by 50 percent ($55 million) targeted
to areas where structural weaknesses in educational systems contribute to the
prevalence of abusive child labor.
Better access to basic education can be a catalyst for poverty reduction
and broader participation in the benefits of global economic integration.
Literacy is fundamental not only to economic opportunity in today's
increasingly knowledge-intensive economy but also to maternal and infant
health, prevention and treatment of HIV-AIDS and other infectious diseases,
elimination of abusive child labor, improved agricultural productivity,
sustainable population growth and environmental conditions, and expanded
democratic participation and respect for human rights.
The U.S. will launch a $300 million school feeding pilot program
working through the UN World Food Program in partnership with private voluntary
organizations. Building on ideas promoted by Ambassador George McGovern and
former Senator Robert Dole and explored at the World Food Program (WFP), the
USDA's Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) would purchase surplus agricultural
commodities and donate them for use in school feeding and pre-school nutrition
programs in poor countries with strong action plans to expand access to and
improve the quality of basic education.
For the first year of the program, the U.S. Government would spend
$300 million for commodities, international transportation, and other costs
under the current CCC authorities, feeding as many as 9 million schoolchildren
and pre-schoolers.
The program would be initiated working through the WFP in partnership
with Private Voluntary Organizations, the U.S. share of which could grow over
time depending upon participation by other donors and eligibility by developing
countries.
Selection criteria would be based on need and include a commitment
and contribution of resources by the host government, technical feasibility,
good progress toward a strong national action plan to achieve the Dakar
Education for All goals, and a commitment by the host government to assume
responsibility for operating the program within a reasonable time-frame where
feasible.
A portion of the commodities could be sold to provide cash resources
for in-country program management, funding any associated programs (e.g.
feeding equipment purchases and local commodity purchases, etc.), in-country
product storing, processing, handling and transportation, and purchasing the
appropriate foods for the local program.
Funding would come from USDA's Commodity Credit Corporation under the
surplus removal authority of the CCC Charter Act, and Section 416(b) of the
Agricultural Act of 1949, which provides for overseas donations of commodities
in CCC's inventory to carry out assistance programs in developing countries and
friendly countries. The last several years have seen record food surpluses in
the U.S., with corresponding record donations of food overseas. USDA analysts
project continued surpluses over the next few years.
The G-8 has strongly endorsed Education for All goals and called for
increased bilateral, multilateral, and private donor support for country action
plans. At the initiation of the U.S., the G-8 has agreed to endorse the goals
of a recently concluded international conference on access to basic education.
Held in April 2000 in Dakar, Senegal, the World Education Forum gathered over
1,000 leaders from 145 countries to increase the world community's commitment
to basic education in poor countries by:
Ensuring that no country with a strong national action plan to expand
access to and improve the quality of basic education should be permitted to
fail to implement its plan for lack of resources;
Ensuring that by 2015 all children -- particularly girls, children in
difficult circumstances and those belonging to ethnic minorities -- have access
to and complete free and compulsory primary education of good quality;
Achieving a 50 percent improvement in level of adult literacy by
2015, especially for women;
Eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by
2005;
Expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood care and
education.
In connection with the Summit and at the suggestion of the U.S.,
World Bank President James Wolfensohn has pledged that the Bank will increase
education lending by 50 percent and devote the increase to basic education in
support of the Dakar Framework, a $1 billion increase or doubling of the Bank's
lending for this purpose. This step could galvanize action on the part of the
developing countries and other public and private donors to develop a deeper
partnership in support of educating the world's youth.
The G-8 action builds on the President's FY 2001 budget initiative to
increase by 50 percent ($55 million) U.S. assistance to strengthen educational
systems in developing countries, targeted to areas where abusive child labor is
prevalent. The International Labor Organization has estimated that 250 million
children work worldwide. A lack of educational alternatives exacerbates this
problem. The Administration initiative would complement direct efforts to
reduce abusive child labor such as those by the International Labor
Organization by providing support for improvements in educational systems.
The Okinawa Summit's focus on basic education in developing countries
builds on one of the primary achievement of last year's G-7/G-8 Summit, the
Cologne Debt Initiative. This initiative makes debt relief available to
countries committed to undertake economic reforms and devote the resources
freed up by lower foreign debt repayments to the education and health of their
people. The President has requested $435 million in appropriations for this
year's participation in the Cologne Debt Initiative, $810 million including FY
2002 and 2003.
The international community has set a goal of achieving universal access
to primary education by 2015; however, half of children in developing countries
do not attend school and 880 million adults remain illiterate. An estimated 120
million children in developing countries do not attend any school at all, and
an additional 150 million children drop out of school before completing the
four years of schooling needed to develop sustainable literacy and numeracy
skills.
Girls represent over 60 percent and perhaps as many as two-thirds of
the children who are not in school.
Where 20 percent of women or less read and write, those women have an
average of six children each. By contrast, in countries in which female
literacy has reached 80 percent or more, this figure drops to fewer than three
children each.
Each year of maternal education reduces childhood mortality by eight
percent.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, 40 percent of children (42 million) are out of
school. In South Asia, 26 percent (46 million) are not enrolled in primary
education. Of those children who do enroll, 33 percent never finish in
Sub-Saharan Africa, 41 percent in South Asia, and 26 percent in Latin
America.
The United Nations World Food Program estimates that 300 million
children in developing countries are chronically hungry. Many of these children
are among the nearly 120 million who do not attend school. Others are enrolled
in school but underperform or drop out due in part to hunger or
malnourishment.
A 1996 World Bank study concluded that when children suffer from
hunger or poor nutrition and health problems, their weakened condition
increases their susceptibility to disease, reduces their learning capacity,
forces them to end their school careers prematurely, or keeps them out of
school altogether.
An estimated 210 million children suffer from iron deficiency
anemia, 85 million are at higher risk for acute respiratory disease and other
infections because of vitamin A deficiency, and 60 million live with iodine
deficiency disorders. Each condition adversely affects cognitive development,
physical development, and motivation, yet each is susceptible to cost-effective
treatment because the body requires only minute quantities of the nutrients in
question.
By helping to address these problems, school feeding and pre-school
child nutrition programs have been shown to have a significant positive impact
on rates of student enrollment, attendance and performance.
The President's international school feeding pilot program and the G-8's
support for basic education in poor countries are part of the G-8's
unprecedented emphasis on development. One of the principal objectives of the
Okinawa Summit has been to strengthen the partnership of developed and
developing countries, international institutions, the private sector, and civil
society in support of global poverty alleviation. The Summit will create a
framework for significantly increased bilateral, multilateral, and private
sector assistance to poor countries with effective policies in three
interrelated areas: infectious diseases, basic education, and information
technology. The goal is to mobilize a more comprehensive response by the
international community in response to developing countries that exert
leadership at home on these issues. No issue is more fundamental to human
progress than basic education:
Primary education is the single most important factor in accounting
for differences in growth rates between East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa
because it leads to greater achievement of secondary education, according to
the World Bank.
An education helps people understand health risks, including AIDS,
take preventative steps and demand quality treatment.
Educational opportunities are also critical to eliminating abusive
child labor. Around the world, tens of millions of young children in their
formative years work under hazardous conditions, including exposure to toxic
and carcinogenic substances in manufacturing, dangerous conditions in mines and
on sea fishing platforms, and backbreaking physical labor. Some children labor
in bondage, are sold into prostitution, or are indentured to manufacturers,
working against invented debts for wages so low that they will never be
repaid.