Education for All International Coordination

UNESCO’s mission is to promote education as a fundamental right, to improve the quality of education and to stimulate experimentation, innovation and policy dialogue.

About Education for All

The Education for All movement is a global commitment to provide quality basic education for all children, youth and adults. The movement was launched at the World Conference on Education for All in 1990 Conference on Education for All in 1990 .

Ten years later, with many countries far from having reached this goal, the international community met again in Dakar, Senegal and affirmed their commitment to achieving Education for All by the year 2015. They identified six key education goals which aim to meet the learning needs of all children, youth and adults by 2015.

As the lead agency, UNESCO is mobilizing and harmonizing the international efforts to reach Education coordination for All. Governments, development agencies, civil society, non-government organizations and the media are but some of the partners working toward reaching these goals.

The drive to achieve the EFA goals also contribute to the global pursuit of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), especially MDG 2 on universal primary education and MDG 3 on gender equality in education, by 2015.

Global Coordination

At the global, regional and national level, UNESCO is working towards deepening partnerships and alliances, building consensus and harmonizing partners’ contribution and participation. EFA partners in this coordinated effort include governments, international organisations, bilateral and multilateral donors, civil society and the private sector.

Among the main EFA coordination mechanisms are the High-Level Group and the Working Group.

The High-Level Group
Convened annually by the Director-General of UNESCO, it brings together some thirty Ministers of Education and of International Co-operation, heads of development agencies and representatives of civil society an the private sector. Its role is to sustain and accelerate the political momentum created at the World Education Forum and serve as a lever for resource mobilization.

The Working Group on Education for All
The Working Group on Education for All provides technical guidance and promotes information exchange between all partners in the Education for All drive. It comprises representatives of all the key EFA stakeholders.

The Global Action Plan
The Global Action Plan is a global strategy developed to improve international and country-level coordination for Education for All. It aims to clarify the roles of the five international agencies spearheading the global EFA movement (UNDP, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNICEF and the World Bank) and define their coordinated, joint action at the global level. Ultimately, it aims to achieve better and more targeted action on the ground, at the country level.

The EFA Global Monitoring Report
The annual Global Monitoring Report is the world’s most respected publication on progress that countries and agencies are making towards the EFA goals, providing the latest data available alongside in-depth analysis. It includes an EFA Development Index which measures the extent to which countries are meeting the EFA goals especially in primary education, adult literacy, gender parity and quality.

EFA Global Action Week
A worldwide advocacy campaign organized each year at the end of April to celebrate the anniversary of the World Education Forum held in 2000 in Dakar. It aims to mobilize governments and the international community to keep their promise to achieve Education for All by 2015.