At a meeting in Senegal’s capital Dakar in 2000, governments from 164 countries agreed on goals including the provision of good quality, free primary education for all and a 50 percent improvement in adult literacy by the middle of next decade.
Half way to that deadline, the world’s richest nations are failing to live up to pledges to help the poorest and the goals remain elusive…”At current performance rates, close to a billion people won’t receive education in their lifetime, let alone in the next seven years as promised,” said Nelida Cespedes, a GCE board member from Peru…
“The biggest blame has to be laid at the door of the G8. Despite repeated promises, only one — the United Kingdom — is almost living up to its promises,” Lucia Fry, GCE policy adviser, told Reuters…
The United States ranked bottom for giving less than $1 per capita per year in aid spending for basic education, compared to about $15 per person in the United Kingdom, Fry said.
Industrial nations that robbed the rest of the world of resources talk a good game about responsibility. When it comes to funding prior commitments, most of them can’t find their wallets.
These 7 countries should be penalised in some way for their clear lack of effort to the commitment that they made.
Why are my tax dollars being given to foreigners?
I see the emotion of it, but how is buying a countries natural resources stealing them? Outright theft was done 100 years ago, but not recently.
You can call countries stupidly selling off their old growth forests as theft, but it avoids the culpability of the victim wannabe nations.
So, ok—let them starve outright because we don’t want to steal their resources?
I see… So first you browbeat the G8 into feeling guilty than they’re not doing enough, and then you start punching and slapping them around for the result for what you berated them for in the first place.
Sorry don’t buy the white guilt, and nation hating argument.
The thieves are the ones running the 3rd world countries. How much of that education money is actually reaching the students? Are we supporting dictators by giving them a chance to steal more money? Isn’t that one of the criticisms against Bush, that the US is propping up dictators?
“Moose…Rocco..Help the G8 find their checkbook!”
Totally off topic but the shading of article quote and the font change has made the blog much more readable.
I’d say hand over nothing. We spend tens of billions on our own schools, and get lousy results. This is a waste of money. These countries can’t teach their people to read, and need western help to do it?
If this money does get sent, it will probably be in a way to keep those countries poor and stupid and servile.
Shock. Shock. Horror. Horror.
I see the White Man’s Burden has gotten heavier what with the obesity epidemic and all.
Oh no, they robbed the rest of the world of resources, so they’d better pay up forever.
One would think leaving should have been sufficient payment.
America was ruled by the British, and they were ruled by the Romans. Let’s make Italy pay.
So when did foreigner’s edumacation become my financial responsibility? I agree with #5 completely. That we give ANYTHING AT ALL should result in gratitude instead of demands for more.
The people who get what little that trickles through are grateful, not that we ever hear about it from AP, UPI, etc.
There was a followup on the Indonesia quake one year after, and the reporter mentioned how much was still not distributed where it was suppose to go. I’d heard how much material was rotting on the docks a couple months after the quakes.
The 3rd world governments are the people’s biggest enemies.
Do not rely on support from the wealthy, they seek not company.
Yowza – #8 – I do agree and that’s unusual !
No child left behind sounds a whole lot like GBs’ way of ensuring it doesn’t happen to him again..