Sites for sore eyes

Many agencies and organisations around the world are working towards improving gender equality. The Millennium Development Goals, specifically include a Target in MDG 3 to improve the education of women and girls, eliminating gender disparity by 2015. The UK Department for International Development has made the MDGs the main focus of its work.

Other projects like the Global Campaign for Education promote education as a human right by pressuring governments to fulfil their promises towards basic education. The Partnership on Sustainable Strategies for Girls Education is an international group of agencies dedicated to improving educational opportunities for girls in the developing world.

Gender practitioners can share resources through interactive websites like Siyanda, the UNDP eDiscussions Board, GEMS and Gender at Work.

Financial, technical and professional assistance is provided by organisations like UNIFEM, UNICEF, UNESCO and the World Bank, for programmes that promote women’s human rights and education for a better quality of life.

From the USA, the SAGE project draws on experiences of the Academy for Educational Development, to provide technical and training assistance in girls’ primary education to all USAID missions. The USAID Gender Equality in Education programme focuses on USAID-funded basic education activities. Similarly in Canada, CIDA has been helping to educate girls in developing countries for more than 30 years, to ensure Education for All by 2015.

In Africa, the Forum for African Women Educationalists works towards equality for girls by transforming educational systems. And SARDC is an independent regional information resource centre in Southern Africa, which runs various activities to achieve gender equality in education.

Among the many grassroots, community-based organisations, Wari promotes gender sensitivity and capacity building in education research and training in Southeast Asia.

Sharmila Pillai
311 Sq. St-Louis
Montreal, H2X 1A7
Quebec
Canada
T +514 999 7587
sharmilapillai@hotmail.com

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