Search / Search Results Date Added to Site: 21st September 2005     Long Summary Title Girls' Education: Towards a Better Future for All Author Department for International Development, UK (DFID) Publication Date January 2005 Publisher Department for International Development, UK (DFID) Donor DFID Long Summary This paper describes DFID's planned actions to support work towards the education and gender Millennium Development Goals by 2015. It is aimed at donor agency staff UN agencies and civil society organisations, providing a background to the challenges facing girls' education and how donors might work together better, in conjunction with other groups including civil society, to improve girls' enrolment in education around the world. It argues that progress in girls' education has been hampered by a number of factors: • a lack of international political leadership; • a global funding gap of an estimated $5.6 billion a year for education; • lack of plans and capacity within national education systems to improve the access to and quality of schooling for girls; • the existence of many poor families who cannot afford to send their children to school. The paper is divided into three main sections: Constraints to girls' education: donors need to support countries' own national strategies in overcoming the constraints to girls' education. This includes ensuring the following: • communities, parents and children can afford schooling • girls have access to a safe school environment • society and parents value the education of girls • children who are excluded due to conflict have access to schooling • girls are not disadvantaged on the basis of caste, ethnicity, religion or disability. Tackling girls education DFID will support governments to: • strengthen political leadership and empower women • make girls' education affordable • make schools work for all girls; and • will also support NGOs, religious and other voluntary organisations. The international community needs to speed up its efforts to support countries that have the largest number of girls out of school International efforts need to focus on: • raising additional resources and directing them to where the need is greatest • improving the way resources are directed to countries so that they have the greatest possible impact • strengthening key international organisations to provide more leadership on girls' education and better support at the country level. Summary Source adapted from Eldis Complete Document View PostScript Document (pdf)