In short, we intend to press the point that leaders everywhere, at every level, are accountable - and as such must exercise their responsibility to use their position and their power to lead. As the World Education Forum in Dakar last month reaffirmed, education is an indispensable tool in this mission. Not only because it is as much the inviolable right of every child to be educated as it is to be protected, but because education is the best long-term investment we can make in the cause of peace. Moreover, education is essential for helping children caught up in war not only to learn and develop, but to heal and to regain a sense of stability and normalcy in their lives. And we know what results we want - a world in which children survive and develop in a caring environment free of abuse and exploitation, a world that offers every child a quality basic education, and one in which adolescents are no longer invisible but in which they are invited, instead, to participate in shaping their own futures.
Children are the nucleus of sustainable human development, there is no doubt about that.
Relatively small investments in their health, education, and general welfare pay huge dividends for societies as a whole. And now we are going to challenge people to act. All rights reserved.