UN Economic and Social Council
June 30 - July 25, 2003

Agenda Item 13 (f)
Economic and Environmental Questions
Population and Development

Statement by
Ambassador Sichan Siv
United States Representative to the
Economic and Social Council

Geneva, Switzerland

July 21, 2003

 

Thank you, Madam President.

The 36th Session of the Commission on Population and Development provided a positive environment for the discussion on this year's theme - population, education, and development.

Education empowers individuals to make informed decisions across the breadth of human experiences, including decisions about work, health, and family size. But more than 120 million children worldwide are not attending school. And about two thirds of the 850 million illiterate people in the world are women.

A mother's level of education is the single most important determinant of child survival. Children of educated women have an increased chance of receiving better nutrition, health care and education. Educational achievement is important for both men and women. However, the impact of women's education underscores the crucial role that universal access to primary and secondary education plays in the improvement of women's socio-economic development. Toward this goal, the United States provided $232.5 million to 36 countries last year to improve their educational systems, especially for girls.

Closing the gender gap has been an important theme of many conferences on education and on population. The International Conference on Population and Development in its Programme of Action set a goal of achieving universal access to education by 2015, and eliminating the gender gap in primary and secondary education by 2005. The Millennium Declaration set the same goal. As the report on world population monitoring makes clear, educational achievement matters for both men and women, but it is an especially important element for women in the achievement of gender equality.

As we look forward to the Tenth Anniversary of the International Year of the Family in 2004, we are pleased that progress has been made in the last decade, but much more remains to be done. School enrollment has increased and the ratio of girls to boys in school has risen. But that ratio still stands at .92 for primary school enrollments and .89 for secondary school.

The United States believes that changing this panorama is within the reach of the world community. We are assisting many countries to meet the challenges of assuring access to quality education to all their children.

Madam President, President Bush has said that: "Children … enter the world with a great capacity to learn.… It should be our … goal to ensure that all children are given the opportunity to learn the fundamental skills to be successful …." Education truly empowers people in all aspects of their lives, strengthens families, and allows them to take control of their own destiny.

Thank you, Madam President.