May 28, 2021 (WASHINGTON, D.C.) — The Global Book Alliance (GBA) issued the following statement in support of the G7’s commitment to girls’ education at the recent Foreign and Development Ministerial.[1]
We applaud the G7’s commitment to girls’ education, a prominent theme of the G7 Foreign and Development Ministerial and highlighted in the Declaration on Girls’ Education. In recognition of the centrality of literacy to the empowerment of women and girls, G7 leaders have put forth an ambitious new goal on the global stage: 20 million more girls reading by age 10 or the end of primary school in low and lower-middle-income countries by 2026.
To transform this political commitment into sustainable action, the GBA calls on G7 leaders to advance concrete solutions towards this goal. Children will only learn to read when they have access to high quality instruction and books at the right level in languages they use and understand. Efforts to strengthen book supply chains are critical to ensuring that the most marginalized, including girls, have the books and learning materials they need.
The GBA acknowledges that G7 countries are a driving force in the mobilization of other public and private resources for sustainable development. We hope this step by G7 leaders will galvanize global prioritization of girls’ education, and literacy in particular, as foundational to the achievement of development goals across sectors. In addition, the GBA recognizes that the forthcoming Global Education Summit provides another key moment for the sector to galvanize action and financing on this issue, in the context of the fourth replenishment of the GPE.
We commend the new G7 Girls’ Education goal and invite new partners to join the Global Book Alliance. We pledge to work together in partnership, to hold each other accountable, and to take concrete steps to ensure that all girls can learn to read, read to learn and improve learning outcomes.
The Global Book Alliance is an international effort involving multiple stakeholders working to transform book development, procurement, and distribution to ensure that no child is without books.
[1] The Group of Seven (G7) is an intergovernmental organization consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.