United Nations
A/RES/71/166
General Assembly
Distr.: General
24 January 2017
Seventy-first session
Agenda item 26 (b)
Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 19 December 2016
[on the report of the Third Committee (A/71/476)]
71/166. Literacy for life: shaping future agendas
The General Assembly,
Recalling its resolution 56/116 of 19 December 2001, by which it proclaimed
the 10-year period beginning on 1 January 2003 the United Nations Literacy
Decade, its resolution 57/166 of 18 December 2002, in which it welcomed the
International Plan of Action for the United Nations Literacy Decade, 1 and its
resolutions 59/149 of 20 December 2004, 61/140 of 19 December 2006, 63/154 of
18 December 2008, 65/183 of 21 December 2010, 68/132 of 18 December 2013 and
69/141 of 18 December 2014,
Recalling also the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, 2 which includes
Sustainable Development Goal 4 on ensuring inclusive and eq uitable quality
education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all, with a specific
target on ensuring that all youth and a substantial proportion of adults, both men and
women, achieve literacy and numeracy by 2030,
Convinced that literacy is crucial to the acquisition by every child, young
person and adult of the essential life skills that will enable them to address the
challenges that they may face in life and represents an essential condition of lifelong
learning, which is an indispensable means for effective participation in the
knowledge societies and economies of the twenty-first century,
Reaffirming the right of indigenous peoples to have non-discriminatory access
to all levels and forms of education provided by States, and recognizin g the
importance of effective measures to promote access for indigenous individuals, in
particular children, to education in their own language, whenever possible, as
addressed in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 3
Deeply concerned that, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization, 758 million adults lack basic literacy skills, that, of the
world’s 650 million primary-school-age children, at least 250 million, many of
whom are from disadvantaged backgrounds, are not acquiring basic skills in reading
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1
See A/57/218 and Corr.1.
Resolution 70/1.
3
Resolution 61/295, annex.
2
16-21873 (E)
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