Millennium Development Goals

Lord Loomba Excerpts

Thursday 7th November 2013 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Lord Loomba]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress has been made on the Millennium Development Goals covering the improvement of education for girls and young women in developing countries.

[Lord Loomba (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome this opportunity to debate progress towards the millennium development goals concerning the education of women and girls in developing countries. I know that my noble friend Lady Northover was going to respond to this debate but is unable to do so. I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Bates, in her place and I hope he is as passionate about the plight of women and girls in developing countries as she is, and I look forward to his response.

The UN’s flagship millennium development goals campaign launched in 2000 gave many of us great hope. It gave us hope that by 2015 important issues, such as education, promoting gender equality and health, will have been significantly improved in developing countries. While I am delighted that some progress has been made in these areas, I remain concerned that 2015 is now on the horizon but not enough progress has been made in order to hit these goals within this timescale.

Education should be the birthright of every child. Unfortunately, the statistics tell us a very different story. More than 57 million children around the world do not go to primary school. Even more shockingly, at least 250 million children cannot read or count, whether or not they go to school. Despite some progress, the UN is falling short of its promise to ensure that,

“by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling”.

Education is the key to solving many of the health crises across the developing world. It is also the key to minimising conflict. It is well known by the UN, Governments and NGOs that investing in education for women and girls is one of the most effective ways of reducing poverty. I am proud that the UK Government have committed to spending 0.7% of income on aid to help the world’s poorest people. They, like me, realise that children are our future. This money from our country will go towards educating 11 million of the world’s poorest and most disadvantaged children. Ring-fencing this money was the right thing to do and I commend my right honourable friend the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, for fighting for this to happen.

The Department for International Development’s priorities for education focus on improving learning, reaching more children and keeping girls in school. It is right to focus on keeping girls in school as there are so many places around the world where they are stopped from receiving the education they need. Stemming from this important priority is the Girls’ Education Challenge, which was set up by the department in 2011 to help up to a million of the world’s poorest girls have an opportunity to improve their lives through education. I was disappointed to see on the department’s website that only £7.5 million out of the possible budget of £61 million has been spent so far through this initiative. I ask the Minister to look into this and see whether improvements can be made.

The now infamous case of Malala Yousafzai, shot by the Taliban for campaigning for girls to be educated in Pakistan is sadly one of many examples throughout the world of women being held back from education.

The reasons why girls are not on a par with their brothers in education across developing countries are complex and diverse, but in many cases interconnected. Research shows that boys are still favoured by parents to receive education over girls in many countries. Early marriage, early pregnancy, domestic responsibilities and a gender-insensitive curriculum are just some of the reasons cited for that. Those issues must be addressed by the respective Governments in partnership with the UN to make more progress on the MDG framework.

What practical steps can Governments take to get more girls into education across the world? The culture of boys being favoured over girls to be educated must stop, and attitudes need to change. There is a growing body of evidence to demonstrate a strong relationship between the presence of female teachers and the attendance and performance of girls in schools, particularly in rural areas. Female teachers are often seen as role models for the girls and their parents. Breaking down barriers such as that one is essential to success.

Having greater female participation and influence in public life in developing countries is another key to growing the number of girls in education. That will ensure that female-specific needs and interests are promoted and defended. On a practical level, that could be as simple as ensuring that schools have female toilets and drinking water, which will encourage girls to go to school.

Government support and leadership in developing countries is essential to deliver more girls into education. I declare an interest: through my charity, the Loomba Foundation, I have seen that first hand. We do a huge amount of work in India educating the children of widows. There are 500 million children of widows across the world, according to UN figures, and 51% of them are girls. Despite making good progress in many parts of India, we had difficulties in the north-eastern states. That was primarily due to the lack of regional government support and leadership. That lack of government support is in my view one of the key contributing factors to why MDG framework targets have not been met in many developing countries.

I leave your Lordships with this. It is vital that the UN sets ambitious but achievable goals, targets and indicators within the post-2015 MDG framework, especially about ensuring that more women and girls have the opportunity to be educated. That will have a positive ripple effect on other problems facing developing countries, such as general and maternal health, gender equality and help to reduce child mortality.

Education is the best gift that anyone can give a child, and I welcome the continuing support from our Government to developing countries in that area. However, I ask our Government to do even more to get larger numbers of girls into education and to put pressure on the UN and other Governments to help to achieve that.