Plan International - Girls' Rights Platform - Girls' rights are human rights: Positioning girls at the heart of the international agenda

United Nations A/RES/59/149 General Assembly Distr.: General 1 February 2005 Fifty-ninth session Agenda item 94 (b) Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 20 December 2004 [on the report of the Third Committee (A/59/492)] 59/149. United Nations Literacy Decade: education for all The General Assembly, Recalling its resolution 56/116 of 19 December 2001, by which it proclaimed the ten-year period beginning on 1 January 2003 the United Nations Literacy Decade, and its resolution 57/166 of 18 December 2002, in which it welcomed the International Plan of Action for the United Nations Literacy Decade, Recalling also the United Nations Millennium Declaration, 1 in which Member States resolved to ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling and that girls and boys will have equal access to all levels of education, which requires a renewed commitment to promote literacy for all, Reaffirming that a basic education is crucial to nation-building, that literacy for all is at the heart of basic education for all and that creating literate environments and societies is essential for achieving the goals of eradicating poverty, reducing child mortality, curbing population growth, achieving gender equality and ensuring sustainable development, peace and democracy, Convinced that literacy is crucial to the acquisition by every child, youth and adult of the essential life skills that will enable them to address the challenges that they can face in life, and represents an essential step in basic education, which is an indispensable means for effective participation in the societies and economies of the twenty-first century, Affirming that the realization of the right to education, especially for girls, contributes to the promotion of gender equality and the eradication of poverty, Welcoming the considerable efforts that have been made to address the objectives of the Decade at various levels, Noting with concern that over 100 million children are not in school and some 800 million adults are illiterate today, that the issue of illiteracy may not be sufficiently high on national agendas to generate the kind of political and economic _______________ 1 04-48520 See resolution 55/2.