UNITED NATIONS GIRLS EDUCATION INITIATIVE

The Commonwealth Secretariat, established in 1965 is the main intergovernmental agency of the Commonwealth, facilitating consultation and co-operation among member governments and countries.

The 15CCEM Action Area on eliminating gender disparity in education is also a Millennium Development Goal. The target for this MDG is 2005, but with girls still lagging behind boys in both access and retention at primary and secondary school levels globally and much more so within the Commonwealth, this has not been attained. The 2005 Human Development Report estimated that had this goal been achieved, 14 million girls would be in school right now. Of those, 6 million are in India and Pakistan alone, with another 4 million in Africa. The Report's Statistical Tables outlined progress that has been made in many countries since 1990, but despite this, Commonwealth South Asia and Sub Saharan Africa continue to exhibit female net enrolment ratios at both the primary and secondary level that tell us the problem will persist for some years to come. Eliminating gender disparity by increasing access to education for girls is ultimately integral to the attainment of the 2015 Education MDG on Universal Primary Education.

See the Commonwealth Secretariat’s work on Education>>