H H Sheikha Moza bint Nasser speaking at the second Steering Committee meeting of the UN Secretary-General’s Global Education First Initiative held at the World Bank headquarters in Washington.
Doha: H H Sheikha Moza bint Nasser has said that an upcoming meeting of the “Educate A Child” initiative in Doha will address the issue of children who are denied education.
“What I hope to see resulting from these meetings is a holistic approach to getting children into schools — a comprehensive approach that tackles the obstacles that prevent children from learning, an approach that is not only focused on education, but also tackles poverty by creating job opportunities and economic foundations that will enable education to be sustainable,” Sheikha Moza said. She was speaking at the second Steering Committee meeting of the UN Secretary-General’s Global Education First Initiative held at the World Bank headquarters in Washington.
Sheikha Moza called for legal protection for the right to education in situations of insecurity and armed conflict through monitoring mechanisms, effective methods of reporting, investigation and prosecution.
The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who opened the bilateral meetings of ministers of education and finance, praised Sheikha Moza’s efforts to promote education in Qatar as well as other countries.
Sheikha Moza spoke about the progress achieved towards the second Millennium Development Goal by the ‘Educate A Child’ initiative, which managed to support education for more than half a million children in just a few months.
The meetings reviewed the obstacles to providing quality education for children in eight countries — Nigeria, Haiti, Yemen, Democratic Republic of Congo, India, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Bangladesh, which constitute more than 50 percent of children not enrolled in schools worldwide.
Sheikha Moza discussed her vision about what it will take to get all of the 61 million children deprived of education back into school. She also called for better coordination among the Steering Committee members, adding the priority should be to enroll all children to schools.
The members reviewed the steps to achieve the second goal of the Millennium Development Goals on education, and the plans they have adopted to take further individual and shared actions.
The Peninsula
