A/66/269 Secretary-General at the International Conference on Financing for Development, held in Monterrey, Mexico in 2002, provides that if developing countries improve governance and achieved results, the donors would come up with the necessary funding to reach the millennium development goals. 20 The Education for All Fast Track Initiative, the most important mechanism of international assistance for education, was designed to assist countries to achieve millennium development goal 2 and the Education for All goals, and pays particular attention to the adequate management of domestic resources by recipient countries. 18. In 2006, States and international organizations involved in development aid established the Leading Group on Innovative Financing for Development to devise additional international financing mechanisms to promote global development. The International Task Force on Innovative Financing for Education, established as part of that initiative, is currently discussing a number of alternatives to enhance funding for education, 21 including the mobilization of domestic resources as well as international aid. 22 5. Relevant global political commitments 19. Commitments to finance primary education are expressed in numerous international declarations and are at the heart of major global campaigns. At the World Education Forum in 2000, Governments, along with other stakeholders, pledged themselves to a strategy, inter alia, to “mobilize strong national and international political commitment for education for all, develop national action plans and enhance significantly investment in basic education”. 23 Those pledges include the commitment that “political will must be underpinned by resources”. It is thus incumbent upon Governments to provide domestic resources for achieving Education for All. Access to education, as a basic human right, is considered a “strategic development investment”. 24 20. The Millennium Development Goals should also be construed as a reaffirmation of obligations expressed in human rights treaties and, therefore, of the responsibility of Governments to provide financial resources for education. Millennium development goal 2 reflects the obligation to ensure universal primary education, including the obligation to ensure that no direct or indirect costs deprive children of their right to education. Millennium development goal 3 reflects the obligation to ensure gender parity at all levels of education, including the duty to provide financial resources for that purpose. __________________ 20 21 22 23 24 11-44589 The underlying idea of debt swaps in education is the cancellation of external debt in exchange for the debtor Government’s commitment to mobilize domestic resources for spending on education, for example. See Leading Group on Innovative Financing for Development, “2+3=8; Innovating in financing education; Report of the Writing Committee to the Task Force on Innovative Financing for Education”, 2010. Discussed at the second meeting of the Education International Task Force of the Leading Group on Innovative Financing, Paris, 17 June 2010. Dakar Framework for Action, adopted at the World Education Forum, 2000, para. 8 (i). World Bank Group Education Strategy 2020, Learning for All: Investing in People’s Knowledge and Skills to Promote Development, Executive summary, p. 1. 7