UNITED NATIONS
THE SECRETARY-GENERAL
MESSAGE ON INTERNATIONAL LITERACY DAY
8 September 2006
Literacy sustains development. That is the theme of this year’s International
Literacy Day. It recognizes that higher literacy rates are essential to economic growth,
poverty eradication, social participation and environmental protection. It reminds us that
literacy is the platform for developing a society’s human resources.
Literacy begins with primary education, and achieving universal primary schooling
by 2015 is one of the Millennium Development Goals. Yet primary education does not
reach every child; there are more than 100 million girls and boys who never enrol in
school. Even for those who are enrolled, the quality of primary schooling may be so poor
that it leads to only a fragile command of basic literacy skills. And while official statistics
put the number of illiterate adults at more than 770 million, that figure does not include
the millions more who are ill-equipped to deal with everyday needs of learning,
understanding and communicating.
Clearly, in many parts of the world, development has not yet delivered one of its
most important outcomes — more literate and better educated populations. At the same
time, those societies are being robbed of the crucial tool for development which literacy
represents — a tool that enables people to take advantage of new learning opportunities,
respond to changing occupational demands, undertake greater responsibilities, build their
way out of poverty and protect themselves against disease — especially HIV/AIDS.
Women and girls who are deprived of literacy lack a vital weapon in freeing themselves
from inequality and discrimination. As we are reminded by the overall theme of the
United Nations Literacy Decade (2003-2012), literacy is freedom.
The precious gift of literacy can sustain development only if it is itself sustained —
by post-literacy programmes, further opportunities for education and training, and the
creation of “literate environments” in which literacy can thrive. On this International
Literacy Day, let us pledge to step up national and international efforts for improved
literacy levels worldwide. Let us give literacy a real chance to transform individuals and
societies around the world.
Kofi A. Annan
