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

United Nations A/RES/61/140 General Assembly Distr.: General 30 January 2007 Sixty-first session Agenda item 60 (c) Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 19 December 2006 [on the report of the Third Committee (A/61/437 and Corr.1)] 61/140. 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, its resolution 57/166 of 18 December 2002, in which it welcomed the International Plan of Action for the United Nations Literacy Decade, and its resolution 59/149 of 20 December 2004, 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 the emphasis placed by the 2005 World Summit on the critical role of both formal and informal education in the achievement of poverty eradication and other development goals as envisaged in the Millennium Declaration, in particular basic education and training for eradicating illiteracy, and the need to strive for expanded secondary and higher education as well as vocational education and technical training, especially for girls and women, the creation of human resources and infrastructure capabilities and the empowerment of those living in poverty, Reaffirming also 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, _______________ 1 06-50283 See resolution 55/2.