Outcome Document on International Conference on 'Women's Literacy for Inclusive and Sustainable Development'

Following is the outcome document of the International Conference on Women's Literacy for Inclusive and Sustainable Development , held on 8-10 September, 2011.

1. We, the Ministers of Education and representatives of the E-9 and SAARC countries having assembled in New Delhi, India from 8 September 2011 to 10 September 2011 for a discourse on ‘Women’s Literacy for Inclusive and Sustainable Development’ reiterate collaborative global action for women’s literacy.

2. We acknowledge the good practices of the different countries as reflected in the country presentations to meet the EFA and MDGs and the commitments made in the Eighth E-9 Ministerial review meeting on Education for All ‘Literacy for Development’ at Abuja, Nigeria.

3. We appreciate the opinion and suggestions of adult education experts, policy makers, academics, and practitioners expressed in technical sessions and their concern for improving women’s literacy and their participation in development.

4. We reiterate collectively the centrality of women’s literacy and lifelong education for inclusive and sustainable development. We also realize that promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women are effective tools to combat poverty and to stimulate development to promote the values of humanity and of peace.

5. We recognize that policies and legislative measures for adult education need to be inclusive and integrated within lifelong learning perspective linking all components of learning and education for which participation of all stakeholders are indispensable to guarantee the needs and aspirations of the most disadvantaged sections of the society.

6. We acknowledge the importance of mainstreaming adult education to improve the literacy rate and quality of life and the need for higher resource allocation for the same.

7. We commit to improve the quality of the programme by pooling together all the good practices of the member countries in the areas of curriculum, teaching-learning materials, training, monitoring, and learner assessment.

8. We affirm our commitment to decentralisation and inclusion of women in all the initiatives related to literacy programmes.

9. We are convinced that learning today is within a lifelong and life wide framework and literacy is the very foundation for lifelong learning. We recognize the need for building an effective lifelong learning system and a learning society as a major strategic change for addressing global educational challenges.

10. We attest to the fundamental role of mutual cooperation as an important modality to exchange expertise, experiences and best practices among E9 and SAARC countries to achieve EFA goals through South-South cooperation and North-South-South Triangular Cooperation.

11. We commit ourselves to forge alliances for regional and sub-regional cooperation to meet the goals set by our countries, particularly in the areas of capacity building, assessment protocol, training and research. As an initial effort, as part of sub-regional cooperation we recommend that a Centre for Policy Research and Training in Adult Education can be established in New Delhi by 2013 for the benefit of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.