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Summary: Literacy is a right and the foundation for all further learning. Yet literacy remains a right denied to some 771 million adults. The 2006 Global Monitoring Report, Literacy for life, measures the world's progress towards achieving the six Education For All goals, and especially the neglected one of universal literacy.
Literacy suffers severe neglect in national and international policy, keeping hundreds of millions of adults on the sidelines of society and limiting progress towards the six Education for All goals and overall poverty reduction, says the new edition of the EFA Global Monitoring Report, launched in London on 9 November 2005. The Report focuses on the world’s 771 million adults living without minimal literacy skills, and points out that while the challenge is predominant in developing regions, significant numbers of young people and adults possess weak literacy skills even in highly developed countries. It maps this global challenge and suggests priorities for scaled-up programmes for youth and adults. It also analyses progress towards universal primary education and gender parity: despite steady advances in some of the world’s poorest countries, the pace of progress remains insufficient. The Report also includes the Education for All Development Index, ranking 123 countries according to their progress towards the six EFA goals set at the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal, in 2000. The goals are still achievable, states the Report. However, reaching them will require an immediate acceleration of activity in developing countries and an approximate doubling of the international community’s aid to basic education, even above the levels implied by the G8 pledges made at Gleneagles in July 2005.