Global Action Week: April 19th - 23rd
Official Launch of Global Action Week 2010 by Minister of State for Overseas Development; Peter Power TD took place in Leinster House on April 20th. Commenting on the launch the Chairperson of the ICGCE, Moira Leydon, indicated:
The Irish Coalition for the Global Campaign for Education welcomed the commitment of the Minister of State for Overseas Aid, Mr Peter Power, that education funding would be maintained at its current level in the overall Irish Aid budget.
The event also saw the launch of the ICGCE Advocacy Document and the ICGCE Advocacy You Tube recording. The ICGCE Advocacy document sets out what Ireland needs to do to ensure the achievement of the Education for All goals by 2015.
Click here for the Minister's Speech or here for a link to the press release on the Irish Aid website
See below for the Chairperson's remarks at the launch
I wish to thank Minister of State, Peter Power, and his Officials in Irish Aid for giving their time to this morning’ launch. We are conscious that it’s the first day of the new Dáil term and particularly appreciate his allocation of his time to us in the Global Campaign.
It is now ten years since our Government, in collective solidarity with the entire international community, adopted the MDGs as an integral dimension of our global commitments.
Compared to most other countries, Ireland has punched well above its weight in terms of the level of aid funding, its commitment to quality and aid effectiveness and its capacity to engage in partnership at all levels of the aid dynamic.
Our role in the Global Campaign is to advocate for the achievement of MDG 2 – best summarized in the concept of Education for All. In one sense, its an easy Goal to focus on because education is a fundamental social and economic good.
Education’s role in term of the development of of human capital is now well established. Our own recent economic history attests to this. Educated people means a high level of labor productivity, larger numbers of skilled workers and greater ability to absorb advanced technology from developed countries. The level and distribution of educational attainment also has direct causal relationships with vital social outcomes such as reducing child mortality, improving maternal health and fertility control, the education of children, and income distribution in society.
However, precisely because education is such a well-identified economic and social good, it is sometimes taken for granted in the aid policies and not given sufficient priority in investment decisions. Ample evidence of this in the recent Global Monitoring Report produced by UNESCO and launched by Minister of State, Mr Power, that governments all over the developed world are failing to meet their commitments and are indeed scaling back on financial aid levels.
Minister and colleagues, today our message is very simple. Please continue to prioritise education in your core aid policies of poverty reduction and fighting hunger. Education is the key to breaking the poverty cycle: no country has broken this cycle without at least 40% of its adults being able to read and write. Education is the key to hunger alleviation because educated farmers are better farmers, more capable of increasing output and diversifying in response to climate change. Of course, in the developing world, the vast majority of farmers are women.
We support your work as Minister of State and the work of Irish Aid. We are working from common humanitarian motivations and share common humanitarian objectives. We cannot afford to drop the cause even if the challenges appear so colossal – global recession, climate change, the spread of fundamentalist ideologies hostile to education and the rights of women and children.
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