Ladies and gentlemen! Friends!

Permit me as your co-host, together with Kristin Clemet, to add my warmest welcome to hers.

It is one of the strengths of Nordic cooperation that it has always looked beyond its own borders. The topic of our conference – Nordic Solidarity. Education and Development Cooperation - is an excellent example of that. Today we benefit as well from the participation of many prominent representatives and experts from a number of countries and multilateral organizations.

A particular welcome therefore to our non-Nordic guests.

Enter education. Exit poverty. Can it be that simple? Or is it just that holding the hammer of education in your hand makes everything look like a nail?

Those who know me know that I like to have it both ways. It can be that simple. But it isn’t. If I should single out but one lesson from the past it would be this: We must have a holistic perspective on development.

Poverty eradication must guide our development efforts. Economic development cannot be seen in isolation from debt, trade, investments, macroeconomic factors, good governance, social development, human rights, and a host of other factors. Development assistance can only supplement the efforts by the countries themselves. It will have limited effect unless it is part of coherent pro-development policies. In the poor countries themselves, but in rich countries too. For example in the area of trade and market access. Development cooperation must be a partnership in the broadest sense.

Education alone cannot solve the development equation. To maximize its impact, it must be seen in context. The most important instrument to that end is the comprehensive national poverty reduction strategies. This implies a coherent strategy with the country itself in the driver’s seat, at strategy for pro-poor policies, for increased investment in education, health and the social sectors.

It is hard to overstate the development impact of education.

If poverty reduction is the overarching Millennium Development Goal, education can be termed an overarching millennium development means.

In the Millennium Development Goals we have set the target of ensuring that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling. We have further set the target of eliminating gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005 and to all levels of education no later than 2015.

These targets are vitally important in and by themselves. But they are doubly important in the sense that education is also a means for achieving all the other development goals and targets. Education is part of a society’s basic infrastructure, an infrastructure that lasts and accumulates itself, an infrastructure that never can be destroyed by war. It remains in people’s heads.

Education is the door to knowing and claiming your political, economic, and social rights and freedoms, to full and equal citizenship.

It is the gateway to skills and productive participation in the economy.

It enables you to protect your health.

Education makes you see that you must protect the environment in order to protect your own future.

Education is an investment that gives lifelong and multiple returns.

It is a particularly powerful tool in the hands of the poor themselves. It implies empowerment of the poor.

No case is more convincing than that of educating the girl child. As far back as 1992 the World Bank claimed that girls’ education is the development investment that yields the highest economic returns in the poorest countries. Nothing beats it. As the saying goes: "When you educate a girl you educate the whole family". Educating girls and women produces results in areas like family planning, health, HIV/AIDS, income generation and many more. It fulfils several strategic development goals simultaneously.

We know all this. Yet, in many societies girls are still last in line for benefits. In a vicious cycle, malnourished girls grow up to become malnourished mothers who give birth to underweight babies. Mothers lacking access to crucial information are unable to feed and care for their children the way they should. Illiterate mothers cannot support children in their learning processes. Poor children become parents of poor children. This vicious circle must be broken.

We know that education works. We know how it works. Yet – as we have heard – 120 million children are not in school. More than 880 million adults remain illiterate. In many countries the institutional infrastructure of education has crumbled. Literacy rates have dropped, in some countries significantly. School fees have been introduced, excluding many poor people and girls from education. Quality has gone down. Teacher training and teaching materials have deteriorated! The number of drop-outs has increased. 89 countries are currently projected to fall short of the Dakar goal of universal primary education by 2015. Seventeen middle-income and 21 low-income countries saw completion rates stagnate or decline in the 1990s.

We knew most of what we know today already in Jomtien. Yet its realistic goals were never fulfilled. Two years ago we agreed on the Dakar Framework for Action. Yet, we are already falling behind on implementation. A recent World Bank report has characterized the lack of progress on the educational targets of the Millennium Development Goals as alarming. With the present rate of implementation we will simply never reach them.

I don’t want to sound alarmist. Important progress has been made. More children than ever are receiving basic education. Yet, something is clearly not moving the way it should, or as fast as it should, in the field of education. And that something is threatening the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, and undermining poverty reduction efforts across the board.

We largely agree on the goals and the means. But still action is lacking.

What needs to be done?

First and foremost we have to look at the priorities, plans, and practices of the developing countries themselves; at how education is factored into national poverty reduction strategies. We must help build capacity at the national level. I expect both of my fellow introductory speakers, Director Kagia and Professor Govinda, to get heavily into that.

Second, we have to look at what advice and support countries are getting in the field of education from the donor community as a whole. Are we providing sufficient support for capacity building? Are we giving education the attention we claim it deserves? Are we coordinating our support sufficiently – without focus on national flags? The answers are – in my view – no.

These are also key questions to be addressed at this unprecedented joint conference between Nordic education ministers and ministers of international development. As pointed out by Kristin Clemet in her opening speech, education has been an engine of development in all the Nordic countries. We are strong on international solidarity. We are strong on development cooperation. We give high priority to education in our development policies. At the same time I am convinced that we can do more and better; by learning from each other, by cooperating more closely, at home, at the country level, multilaterally.

Third, we must make more effective use of the rights based approach. Every individual has the right to education. The right to education is one of our most fundamental human rights. It is enshrined in several human rights conventions.

Norway initiated the process that led to the establishment of a special rapporteur on the right to education under the Commission on Human Rights in Geneva. The rapporteur, Professor Tomasevski, is critically examining countries’ priorities, and donors’ programmes, including those of the Bretton Woods institutions, to see how they are promoting the right to education. She will speak to us this afternoon. Judging by experience we can expect salty advice and unadorned observations.

Fourth, we must provide additional resources. As we have promised. Prime responsibility for fulfilling the right to education rests with the national governments. But, the Dakar Framework of Action affirms that no countries seriously committed to education for all shall be thwarted in their achievement of this goal by lack of resources.

This is our responsibility!

The costing of the Millennium Development Goals and the attendant targets is work in progress. In the lead-up to the Monterrey conference it was estimated that a doubling of current ODA levels is necessary to achieve the goals. UNDP is currently engaged in making sectoral calculations modeled on the ones done by the World Commission on Macroeconomics and Health. The numbers may vary, but the need for large additional resources is indisputable.

A promising approach in the field of education is the so-called EFA Fast Track Initiative that the World Bank is now working on in cooperation with UNESCO, UNICEF and several bilateral donors. It involves concerted action to support low-income countries that have demonstrated commitment to the goal of universal primary education. It will begin with a 10 countries pilot phase which would provide lessons for scaling up. It will be based on universal primary education – free for all, without user fees. The World Bank has calculated that it will take about USD 2,5 - 5 billion per year in external financing to help the 47 lowest- income countries achieve universal completion of five years of schooling.

But this is not enough. We need not only to ensure access, we need to improve the quality of education, ensure teacher training, school material, expansion of vocational training and secondary education for a large number of pupils. This implies a holistic sectoral approach. And it implies resources.

The global picture on resource mobilization gives ground for cautious optimism. The Monterrey Conference helped to mobilize new commitments by the United States and the European Union, commitments that if fulfilled would increase global ODA by some 25 percent in three years. In contrast to the relatively recent past, development issues including education, now figure prominently on the agenda of G7 meetings and other key international fora. New private-public financing mechanisms have been set up. Important progress has been made in the area of debt relief. We have agreed on a broad round of trade negotiations in the WTO with a strong development dimension - the Doha development agenda.

We have no reason for complacency. The Monterrey conference may have reversed the trend of declining ODA, but implementation has to be monitored. Inadequate financing is still a major development challenge. We must maintain a high level of pressure to move the laggard countries closer to the 0.7 percent ODA target.

For its part the Norwegian Government will increase its level of ODA from the current 0.92 percent to one percent of gross national income by 2005.

The Government has recently launched an Action Plan for Combating Poverty in the South towards 2015. The Action Plan provides an overall strategy for Norway’s efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. It underlines that education is a major weapon in the fight against poverty.

The Action Plan particularly emphasizes efforts to improve education, through the dialogue on national poverty strategies, through development assistance, and through support for international organizations working in these fields. Norway will play a pro-active role in these efforts.

We are currently working on a strategy to operationalize the Action Plan within the area of education. We will increase spending on education as a percentage of our ODA from the current 8,9 percent to 15 percent by 2005. In broad terms this entails an extra 1 billion Norwegian kroner (or 110 million USD) for education in development over the next 3 years.

We have seen several breakthroughs the last few years:

We have seen a breakthrough on debt relief.

We have seen a breakthorugh on trade and development – the Doha Development Agenda.

We have seen a breakthrough on the broad commitment to the Millennium Development Goals.

We have seen a breakthrough on resources for development assistance – in Monterrey.

We have seen a breakthrough in resources for health.

We are not there yet – and we need to follow up in all these areas. No doubt a number of new commitments have been made: And – now it is time for education.

Now it is time to deliver on the basic Millennium Development Goals – on education for all. Now it is time to use Education as the prime weapon against poverty.

I can think of no nobler purpose for Nordic solidarity and cooperation.