The first in a series of regional conferences in support of Global Literacy will be held in Doha, Qatar, from 12 to 14 March. The meeting, organized by UNESCO and the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development will seek ways to reduce illiteracy in the Arab States where 34 per cent of the adult population cannot read or write.

The conference, "Literacy Challenges in the Arab States Region: Building Partnerships and Promoting Innovative Approaches", will be opened by Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned, Chairperson of Qatar Foundation and UNESCO Special Envoy for Basic and Higher Education, under whose patronage the event is being held.

Addresses will also be made by Dr Musa Bin Jaafar Bin Hassan, President of UNESCO's General Conference and Permanent Delegate to UNESCO of the Sultanate of Oman, and UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura.

Over the three days of the conference, some 400 participants, including policy-makers, representatives from civil society, the private sector, universities, research institutes, practitioners, donors and other partners will examine the major literacy issues and challenges in the Arab States.
Discussions will take place in the form of roundtables on literacy policies and strategies, costs and finance, programme delivery, literacy interventions for crisis, post-conflict and emergency situations, benchmarking and monitoring and evaluation. Best practices on the themes of mother-child literacy and intergenerational learning, literacy for health, literacy for economic self-sufficiency, media literacy, enriching literate environments, and literacy and ICTS will also be presented as models that could be replicated in other places and contexts. An important outcome of the Conference will be the commitment of financial and other support to projects that capture the interest of participating donors.

An exhibition on "Enriching Literate Environments" will take place parallel to the Conference and will present children's books as an effective tool to consolidate the reading skills of children and youth, while giving parents the means to support their children's literacy development as well as their own.

The event will be followed by other similar regional conferences over the next two years. It is a direct follow-up to the White House Conference on Global Literacy, hosted by Laura Bush, First Lady of the United States and UNESCO Honorary Ambassador for the Decade of Literacy in the context of the United Nations Literacy Decade, in New York on 18 September 2006, which was the starting-point for a major campaign in support of literacy within the framework of the UN Literacy Decade (2003-2012) and UNESCO's Literacy Initiative for Empowerment (LIFE).

Published March 4, 2007