In the name of the President of the French Republic, Mrs Rama Yade, French Secretary of State for Sports, today joined the UN Secretary-General, a number of Heads of State and Government, FIFA representatives, footballers and all football fans to support the “1 GOAL: Education for All” campaign initiated by the Global Campaign for Education.

This initiative follows on from the actions initiated at the Dakar Forum in 2000 where the international community pledged to support education. These commitments were then included in the UN Millennium Development Goals with two main focuses:

to eliminate gender disparities in education;
to achieve universal primary education for all by 2015.

The Global Campaign for Education has been actively working ever since to put an end to the global education crisis.

Tina Kieffer, Michel Jacquier, Roland Biache and Bernard Lama

During an event organized today in Paris gathering personalities from the world of sport and culture, civil society organizations and the media, including the footballers Mikaël Silvestre and Bernard Lama, the writers Marek Halter and Erik Orsenna, the journalist Tina Kieffer and others, Mrs Rama Yade launched the international “1 GOAL: Education for All” campaign which aims to ensure that the 75 million children out of school in Africa and the world’s poorest countries get access to free education, qualified teachers and a future that only quality education can provide.

Rama Yade

Mrs Madame Rama Yade read out a message from the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, in which he declared “The Football World Cup is a major global event and gives us all the opportunity to mobilize for one goal: that tomorrow every child in the world can go to school”. France will be taking new initiatives in order to make an even more active contribution to this mobilization.

The “1 GOAL” campaign aims to ensure that education is a priority at the international summits to be held during the 2010 FIFA World Cup and at the Millennium Development Goals summit in September 2010. The 2010 FIFA World Cup consequently provides an extra opportunity to rally public opinion in support of the pressing need for access to education in Africa and the world’s poor regions.

For further information about the “1 GOAL: Education for All” campaign or to watch the global event on line please visit http://www.join1goal.org. You can also see all the photos, videos and testimonies from personalities at http://www.thenewsmarket.com/join1goal.

About “1 GOAL: Education for All”
“1 GOAL: Education for All” is a global initiative launched by the Global Campaign for Education to mark the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. This initiative aims to raise the awareness of supporters all over the world to how important education is in developing countries. It is supported by the commitment made by 164 governments to finance quality education for all by 2015 in the framework of the Millennium Development Goals.

Press contact
Mathieu Razé - mathieu.raze@edelman.com - 33 1 56 69 73 84