On this 8 September 2000 the whole world is, for the thirtieth successive year, celebrating International Literacy Day. The World Education Forum, which was held in Dakar last April, was aimed in part at conducting just such an appraisal. There are also very many who, as a result of the deterioration of their economic and social status, are losing their command of even the basic concepts they had acquired, and find themselves relapsing into functional illiteracy. Poverty and exclusion are chiefly to blame. They remind us that economic development does not necessarily go hand in hand with social development.
Education is a fragile good and one that is still too unequally distributed.
Literacy training is the gateway to it. To be useful and functional, such training must directly address improving the status of those it targets. Our efforts in the field of literacy training are therefore not over and probably never will be, for such training, if it is to remain a useful tool, must be maintained throughout life. Only by enlisting the international community as a whole will we be able to meet the challenge. I wish to pay tribute, on this very special day, to all those who constantly devote themselves, many voluntarily and in particularly difficult conditions, to this noble and generous combat.