34th session of the General Conference - Meeting on the 3 Core Initiatives for Education for All

From 29-10-2007 to 29-10-2007 (France) 

During the 34th session of the General Conference, a side meeting on the three core Education for All (EFA) initiatives was held to inform Member States about the initiatives’ key elements in relation to their contribution to EFA and EFA-related Millennium Development Goals.

UNESCO’s Education Sector three core EFA initiatives are:

• Literacy Initiative for Empowerment (LIFE),



• Teacher Training Initiative for Sub-Saharan Africa (TTISSA), and



• UNAIDS Global Initiative on Education and HIV & AIDS (EDUCAIDS).

The initiatives are at the centre of UNESCO’s contribution to EFA at country level, with a particular focus on Africa.

Although there has been marked progress towards Universal Primary Education, attaining EFA remains a global challenge due to a number of factors including:

• Persistence of the literacy challenge – with an estimated 774 million adults in the world without literacy skills, about 64% of whom are women;



• An acute shortage of qualified and motivated teachers, particularly in Africa; and



• The present and growing threat of HIV and AIDS – close to 33 million people have HIV, over 2.5 million of them infected in 2007 alone.

The meeting provided an opportunity for delegations to learn more about the initiatives, their progress and challenges, and to discuss the way forward in the next biennium.

EDUCAIDS Presentation (PDF Format)

EDUCAIDS Handout (English and French, PDF Format)