Colombia-born Shakira, real name Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll, is the honorary chairperson for this year's Global Campaign for Education Action Week, taking over from actress Angelina Jolie. A two-time Grammy winner, Shakira has been a UNICEF goodwill ambassador since 2003. (Dolores Ochoa R./Associated Press)
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International Aid
Shakira's message
Last Updated April 21, 2008
By Connie Fan
They are an unlikely trio: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, a dour Scot; World Bank president Robert Zoellick, a, well, world banker; and Shakira, a Colombian pop goddess whose current big hit is "Hips don't lie."
But they certainly seem to have one thing in common, a fervent belief that textbooks and classrooms are the doors to brighter futures for the world's poor.
The three spoke with media in a conference call Monday to kick off the Global Campaign for Education Action Week, which runs April 21 to 27.
"Usually, education is perceived to be a luxury, not a human right," said Shakira. But without access to education, "people who are born poor will die poor." Education, she said, is crucial to breaking the cycle of poverty in developing countries.
The Global Campaign for Education, founded in 1999, is an international organization that promotes free basic education for all. Every April, it plans an action week in partnership with UNESCO to raise awareness for education access and to remind political leaders of their commitment to the cause.
In April 2000, during the UNESCO-sponsored World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal, 164 countries committed to providing universal access to primary education by 2015. As well, they vowed to improve adult literacy, gender parity in access to education and the quality of education.
Millennium goal
Universal primary education and reducing the gender gap in schooling are also two of the United Nation's eight Millennium Development Goals — the blueprint for meeting the needs of the world's poor by 2015.
This year marks the halfway point to the 2015 target. And according to UNESCO, out of 129 countries, 51 have achieved or are close to achieving the goal of universal primary education, 53 are in an intermediate position and 25 are at risk of missing the 2015 target.
Currently, 72 million children under the age of 12 and 226 million school-age young people around the world do not have access to education.
"Education is a passport to a better life," said Zoellick, "and a contributor to the social and economic health of a community."
Among the other benefits that education confers:
- Research also shows that education programs for mothers significantly reduce levels of child mortality.
- Schooling for girls significantly reduce their likelihood of acquiring HIV/AIDS.
- More youth and adult education lead to higher life expectancy, as well as an increase in a country's income and GDP per capita.
Canada's role
Between 2000 and 2005, Canada quadrupled its investment in basic education for the developing world, spending a total of $555 million during that five-year period.
The speakers acknowledged Canada's contributions, but expressed their desire to see developed countries give even more.
In Canada this week, 96 schools across the country are to participate in a set curriculum along with 120 other countries in an attempt to break a Guinness record for the world's largest communal lesson.
"I want us to be the first generation to develop the potential of not just some of world's children, but all the world's children," said Brown.
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