Security Council acts to deter attacks on schools

Français | Español By Kevin Watkins, director of the Education for All Global Monitoring Report The real measure of the Education for All Global Monitoring Report’s impact is not how well it is received by governments, but whether it makes a difference – however small – to the lives of people denied opportunities for education. [...]

Budget cuts, aid and American national security

Français | Español  By Kevin Watkins, director, Education for All Global Monitoring Report There’s nothing quite like a fiscal crisis to secure the triumph of short-termism over the long-term national interest. The United States stands to gain a great deal from using its aid budget to promote education in developing countries. More education in poor countries [...]

Aid donors get an F for education

Français | Español Poor people understand the power of education to transform lives – yet education receives just 2% of humanitarian aid By Kevin Watkins, director, Education for All Global Monitoring Report If you want to see iron resolve in action, take a trip to the Kachange camp for displaced people in North Kivu, in the Democratic [...]

Let’s keep our promise to the world’s children

Every child knows that you shouldn’t break a promise. Yet governments are on the brink of breaking a Millennium Development Goal promise made to the world’s children – the promise of a decent quality basic education for all by 2015. By Kevin Watkins, director of the Education for All Global Monitoring Report As political leaders [...]

Too little, too late: the cost of aid delays

Lives are being lost needlessly because of an aid system that favours crisis response over prevention By Kevin Watkins, director of the Education for All Global Monitoring Report from The Guardian, August 2, 2010 Last year, a militia attacked 12-year-old Claudine’s village in Masisi district, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Both of her parents [...]

Giving education a sporting chance

By Kevin Watkins, director of the Education for All Global Monitoring Report You are probably wondering what a UN official is doing writing about the World Cup. So let me start with an assurance. I’m not about to offer post-match analysis, express a view on the vuvuzela or take a position on the merits of [...]

When education saves lives (2): reducing maternal mortality

By Kevin Watkins, director of the Education for All Global Monitoring Report There are few starker indicators of global inequality than maternal mortality. Risks of death from causes associated with pregnancy in childbirth are heavily concentrated in developing countries – over 80% of fatalities happen in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The world’s most dangerous [...]

When learning saves lives: education and child mortality

By Kevin Watkins, director of the Education for All Global Monitoring Report Give a man a fish, as the saying goes, and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and you nourish him for a lifetime. But that’s nothing. Give a girl an education and you not only transform her life chances [...]

India’s ground-breaking Right to Education Act

Numerous voices have risen this week to praise India’s historic Right to Education Act, which came into force on 1 April. The new law establishes the right to education of every child aged 6 to 14, and addresses India’s need to provide more schools and teachers, and further develop training and curriculums. The impact of [...]

THE FUNDING GAP, 1: The G-8 needs to stick to its promises

Last year, leaders of the G-8 group of rich countries made a bold promise to the world’s children: No country seriously committed to Education for All, they said, would be thwarted in its achievement because of lack of resources. Impressed? You shouldn’t be. G-8 leaders have been saying the same thing at every summit for [...]