Millennium Development Goals

Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead Excerpts

Thursday 7th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead (Lab)]

My Lords, education is of course a basic human right, and it is one of the very best ways to reduce poverty within families and indeed across generations. It is key to efforts which have to be made to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment. Education provides the building blocks a girl needs if she is to participate fully in society, earn a living and care for her children and family. It also prepares her to stand up for her right to make her own decisions about her own life and her own future. Education is the one constant positive determinant of practically every single development outcome we seek.

Yesterday I met Manizha and Samira from Afghanistan, who are women’s rights activists. They described the regular attacks on girls who walk to school, the girls’ schools which have been burnt down, the acid attacks on girls, the poisoning of girls’ school drinking water, and the threats and violence that teachers face if they teach girls. Extremists clearly do their best to terrorise girls who still dare to go to school in Afghanistan. They told me about their concerns that there is insufficient monitoring by DfID of funds allocated to the Ministry of Education in Kabul. I would therefore appreciate information from the Minister on what checks and balances are in place to ensure that the funds are properly managed and distributed so that girls get their fair share of those funds.

In the limited time that I have, I also ask the Minister whether he agrees that UN discussions must focus on the urgent need to work to ensure that there is universal literacy by 2030. That has to include tackling the gender gap in access to literacy across the generations. An Education for All statistic tells us that of the 760 million illiterate adults around the world, two-thirds are women. This is despite the clear evidence that, unless there is a much stronger commitment to access to education for women and mothers, they will continue to be excluded and marginalised. Is it not time that Governments placed greater emphasis on tackling the blatantly discriminatory social norms which continue to dictate that boys’ education is to be valued more than girls’ education? Simply emphasising getting girls into schools is not enough. Unless a firm priority is given to the need to tackle the root causes of gender inequality, frankly it just will not ever happen.

The new global framework to be finalised in 2015 will include access to secondary education. Will the Minister outline DfID’s view on how girls’ transition to secondary school can be supported? Will the UK move beyond the high-level panel report recommendations and support a stronger position which recognises those underlying causes of gender inequality? I trust that the UK will convey a strong message on the need for a strong and explicit focus on gender inequality and women’s rights post-2015. The fact is that millions of women and girls simply cannot wait for the fulfilment of their right to a quality education.