The Committee’s focus on EFA and Africa operates through a two-pronged approach of (i) looking inwardly in how the UK is proceeding with the EFA goals; and (ii) looking internationally at how the UK can contribute to achieving EFA goals especially in Africa. The Committee works closely with DFID and DIUS and the EFA Global Monitoring Report team in UNESCO.

The Committee has been at the forefront of raising awareness of and promoting the UNESCO EFA Global Monitoring Report - the prime instrument to assess global progress towards achieving the six 'Dakar' EFA goals to which over 160 countries committed themselves in 2000. (more about the GMR)

Since the global launch of the 2006 EFA GMR “Literacy for Life” held in the UK at the Whitechapel Idea Store with the collaboration of the UK National Commission, UNESCO and DFID, the Working Group had been active not only in leading the organisation of annual seminars on the GMR but also in coordinating UK experts in contributing to the content, direction and structure of the GMR.

2006 - Global launch of the EFA GMR “Literacy for All” in London
Speakers included The Rt Hon. Baroness Amos (Leader of the
House of Lords and Lord President of the Council), Mr Koïchiro
Matsuura (UNESCO Director-General) and Dr Nicholas
Burnett (Director of the GMR). A highlight of the event was testimony by Anwara Begum, a local resident from Bangladesh who
spoke about her experience of learning to read and write as an
adult in the UK. (more)

2007 – Seminar to discuss Input to the UNESCO EFA Global Monitoring Report 2009 “Governance, Management and Financing of Education”

2008 – Seminar to launch the 2008 GMR: Education for All: Will we Make it?
The UK National Commission for UNESCO, UKFIET and the Institute of Education
hosted a colloquium on the EFA Global Monitoring Report 2008, 'Education for All by 2015:
Will we make it?' on 17 January 2008 at the Institute of Education, London.

Download a preliminary summary-report on the colloquium (Word, 162kb). The 2008 Global Monitoring Report was launched on 29 Nov 2007 at the UN HQ in New York. 
(more) 

PUBLICATION

A Human Rights-Based Approach to EDUCATION FOR ALL

Author: UNICEF/UNESCO
Price: US $20.00
No. of pages: 164
Publication date: September 2007
Publisher: UNICEF
Languages:
English French Spanish
ISBN: 978-92-806-4188-2

Available in the following formats:
[Print] This link will take you directly to the United Nations publications website, where you can order the report. You can also purchase this publication at your bookstore or any online bookseller. Prices are expressed in US dollars unless otherwise specified.

[PDF] Current thinking and practice in the education sector are presented along with a framework for rights-based policy and programme development. This joint UNESCO-UNICEF publication is intended to guide dialogue between United Nations Development Group and Education for All (EFA) partnerships and facilitate a breakthrough from ‘right to education’ rhetoric to accelerated interventions for attaining the EFA goals and the Millennium Development Goals related to education. 

Professor Alan Smith (UNESCO Chair in Education for Human Rights, Pluralism and Democracy at the University of Ulster) is one of the contributors to this report. (more about the UK UNESCO Chairs Group)