First Lady Laura Bush announced at a February 13 private gathering at the New York Public Library’s Fifth Avenue facility that the United States will help support a United Nations effort to eradicate world illiteracy. Mrs. Bush was joined by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and U.S. Secretary of Education Roderick Paige at a ceremony to launch the U.N.’s Decade of Literacy, the Associated Press reported.
The program is intended to “bring universal and gender-equal education and greater literacy to the world,” Mrs. Bush said. “These are not simply goals for the next decade, these are moral responsibilities every nation must embrace.” She added that the United States is investing $333 million to promote education in primary and secondary schools in other countries, with nearly one-third of that amount in Africa.
The Decade of Literacy program has the goal of increasing global literacy by 50% by 2015 and will be coordinated by the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.
Posted February 17, 2003.