A/66/269 I. Introduction 1. The present report is submitted pursuant to Human Rights Council resolutions 8/4 and 17/3. It addresses State obligations regarding public financing of basic education and the importance of legal frameworks ensuring domestic financing of such education. It also contains an update on the situation of education in emergencies, in accordance with General Assembly resolution 64/290. 2. Following his appointment by the Human Rights Council, Kishore Singh assumed his functions as Special Rapporteur in August 2010. Since then, he reported to the Human Rights Council at its seventeenth session, in June 2011. In his first report 1 he outlined priority areas to be examined in the course of his mandate and addressed in more detail State obligations to ensure equality of opportunity in education. He also reported on his first country mission to Senegal, 2 which was conducted in January 2011. 3. During his first year of work, the Special Rapporteur participated in a number of public events on education and worked to establish collaboration with States, international organizations and non-governmental organizations. The Special Rapporteur recently participated in two regional preparatory meetings of the Economic and Social Council, in Thailand in March and in Togo in April. In July, the Special Rapporteur participated in the annual ministerial review held during the High-Level Segment of the substantive session of the Council, which focused on internationally agreed goals and commitments with regard to education. II. Financing basic education 4. The right to education is an internationally recognized right and the provision of adequate financial resources is essential to its realization. Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes the right of everyone to education, which shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, States have undertaken international legal obligations for the fulfilment of the right to education through various human rights instruments 3 and assumed the responsibility of providing the resources required for its realization. 5. Resource constraints, however, remain a major barrier to the realization of the right to education. Prospects for achieving the targets of millennium development goals 2 (Ensuring that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling) and 3 (Eliminating gender disparity in all levels of education no later than 2015) are bleak on account of a __________________ 1 2 3 11-44589 A/HRC/17/29 and Corr.1. A/HRC/17/29/Add.2. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, articles 13 and 14, and the UNESCO Convention against Discrimination in Education comprehensively provide this right, which is also guaranteed by articles 28 and 29 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, article 5 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, articles 10, 11 and 13 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, articles 30, 43 and 45 of the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, and article 24 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. 3