In Ethiopia, 6.8 million people gained access to improved sanitation from 1990 to 2006. This was partly the result of having educated communities about the links between sanitation and health, and of implementing new, affordable technologies.

We believe education transforms lives. Do you?

With just a few weeks to go before world leaders gather at the United Nations General Assembly, the EFA Global Monitoring Report team is launching a new website, ‘Education Transforms’, containing infographics showing education’s pivotal role in achieving progress across different areas of development – whether poverty eradication, health, environmental sustainability, or women’s empowerment. Join us in using this evidence to call on world leaders to ensure education’s central place in the global development framework after 2015 by completing the online call for action.

Education is a powerful transformative tool, but only when policy makers recognize this and act upon it will we achieve genuine change. Even though education has been voted as the top priority by the public in the My World Survey, it is going to take a lot more to capture the full attention of the world leaders.

Education and Sanitation – In Ethiopia, 6.8 million people gained access to improved sanitation from 1990 to 2006. This was partly the result of having educated communities about the links between sanitation and health, and of implementing new, affordable technologies.

On the 19th September – the week before the UN General Assembly where new development goals will be discussed – our Education Transforms website will be updated with new infographics designed by Information is Beautiful, which will present fresh evidence of education’s indispensable and far-reaching role in supporting wider development goals. These infographics will be presented in a booklet that will be launched at an event in New York on that day, pre-releasing analysis from the forthcoming EFA Global Monitoring Report 2013/14.

It is our hope that these figures will be widely used and disseminated by all sectors of development to make the case for education to be accorded the prominent position in development that it deserves. In reality, the interwoven connections between different sectors are not yet sufficiently recognized in global development goals. Yet this will be vital if we are to achieve faster progress after 2015 than has been reached for some of the Millennium Development Goals over the past decade.

Every signature we receive agreeing that Education Transforms will not only go towards supporting education for the 250 million children who are currently denied the right to a good quality education, but towards overall global progress.

Please revisit our new website on 19th September to see, share and write about the new infographics from the EFA GMR 2013/14. And, in the meantime, join us in reminding world leaders of the transformative power of education before they meet at the UN this summer, to help to ensure education’s central place in the global development framework after 2015.

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3 comments

  1. A few weeks ago, Gordon Brown, as UN Global Education Envoy, handed a petition on universal primary to the President of Pakistan from among the 25 million world-wide internet members of Avaaz (= Voice). In response, the President added his name to the petition and signed an order to fund schooling for three million of Pakistan’s 5.5 million out of school children.
    What can the people of Pakistan and the UN Human Rights bodies do now to hold the government accountable for this commitment?

    It can be done. Some 20 years ago, the President of Uganda promised free primary education to every family with four or more children, with first priority for girls and for disabled children because they would otherwise have been overlooked. UNESCO reported that within 3 years the numbers increased from 2.5 million to 6.5 million and the number of teachers from 38,000 to over 90,000. Many problems remained but it was a start.

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