22/9/2006
UNESCO to Organize Regional Global Literacy Conferences
 
Building on a United States-hosted conference on global literacy this week, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) will organize a series of high-level regional conferences during 2007 and 2008

“These conferences will address specific regional challenges in literacy with the aim of building cooperation among stakeholders and mobilizing resources for concrete interventions at country level,” UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura said.

This week’s Conference on Global Literacy, organized and hosted by US First Lady Laura Bush in her capacity as Honorary Ambassador of the UN Literacy Decade (2003-2012), was an outstanding success. Mrs. Bush announced that the US would contribute $1 million to the Literacy Assessment and Monitoring Programme (LAMP), a UNESCO initiative to improve the accuracy of global literacy data. The first of the regional Literacy Conferences, for the Arab region, will be hosted in Qatar from 12 to 14 March, 2007, by Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser al Missned, UNESCO Special Envoy for Basic and Higher Education.