GLOBAL PREPARATORY MEETING - 28 April 2011
The 2011 Global Preparatory Meeting of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) on the theme “Meeting the Internationally Agreed Goals and Commitments with regards to Education” took place on 28 April 2011 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. This event was organized as part of the preparatory process of the 2011 Annual Ministerial Review (AMR).
In line with the Council’s emphasis on giving voice to the people with a direct stake in its debates and policy recommendations, the Council heard the views of a range of stakeholders, including young people and students, United Nations system and academic experts on education, practitioners and the general public.
A range of issues affecting education, including access, innovation, quality and its relevance for capacity building, poverty reduction and sustainable development were discussed. The meeting also highlighted some innovative solutions that are being tried by various governments and other stakeholders and that could be replicated or scaled up in other countries and regions.
The meeting was divided into two distinctive parts. The first featured a reporting back on the outcome of a Facebook e-discussion on “Building a future for today’s youth: improving access to education”, and a reporting back on the outcome of the UN Development Group’s MDG-Net forum e-discussion on “Education: Closing the Gap”. The former featured brief summaries by the discussion Moderators from the five geographical regions of the world. The latter featured a short summary of the discussion on the themes: (i) Quality; (ii) Access and (iii) Innovation in education.
The second part of the meeting was a panel discussion on “Removing barriers to education: What’s new and notable”, which featured brief presentations by expert panelists, followed by an interactive discussion.
The Global Preparatory Meeting constituted an important part of the preparations for the AMR and served as a key input to the Report of the Secretary-General on the education for all agenda, as well as the Ministerial Declaration on "Implementing the internationally agreed goals and commitments in regard to education".