For the past six years, All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development (ACR GCD; https://allchildrenreading.org) a partnership of the United States Agency for International Development, World Vision, and the Australian Government, has fostered the development of innovations that can increase reading outcomes for children in developing…

Many reasons exist for these challenges in providing adequate literacy instruction within the school context. For example, a World Bank study found an average 19 percent teacher absence rate across Bangladesh, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Peru, and Uganda; and many teachers who were physically present were not spending their time teaching in the…

Background: For a majority of the world's children, despite substantial increases in primary school enrollment, academic learning is neither occurring at expected rates nor supplying the basic foundational skills necessary to succeed in the 21st century. The significant lag in academic achievement tells us that simply making formal education…

This paper argues that many internationally financed literacy programs do not sufficiently take into consideration important daily life issues of the learners, including nutritional deficiencies that may hinder learning, or of children-parent-society interactions that may improve learning. As a result, many programs have become synonymous with…

The establishment of the Nigerian National Commission for Nomadic Education in 1989 created wider opportunities for an estimated 9.3 million nomads living in Nigeria to acquire literacy skills. This commission was struck to address low literacy rates among pastoral nomads and migrant fishermen, which put literacy rates at 0.28 percent and 20…

Describes a basic literacy project targeting deprived children in Bhubaneswar, Orissa, India. Considers such program features as the use of 35 slum and public utility centers as sites for teaching basic skills, nutrition, and hygiene; flexible schedules including morning classes for slum children and afternoon and evening classes for working…

The "EFA (Education For All) Global Monitoring Report 2006" estimates that about 100 million children of primary school age, 55 percent of them girls, are not enrolled in primary school. UNESCO Bangkok, the Consortium for Street Children and Childhope Asia initiated the "Promotion of Improved Learning Opportunities for Street…

Reducing the number of undernourished people in all countries to half its present level no later than 2015 is the commitment undertaken by the international community during the World Food Summit of 1996. In order to accomplish this goal, a common vision to work for sustainable growth that favors the poor and provides more resources for health,…

This abridged version of the Secretary-General's report to the United Nations General Assembly's Special Session on Children details the achievements of the 1990 World Summit for Children. Nearly 150 countries provided national progress reports of their implementation of goals set forth in the Summit and the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the…