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EDUCATION AND CULTURE AS ESSENTIAL FACTORS IN PROMOTING THE PARTICIPATION OF MEN AND WOMEN IN POLITICAL LIFE AND AS PREREQUISITES FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF PEOPLES
Resolution adopted by consensus by the 105th Inter-Parliamentary Conference (Havana, 6 April 2001)
The 105th Inter-Parliamentary Conference,
Mindful that more than fifty years have passed since every
person's right to education and to participate in the cultural
life of the community was set forth in the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, which also asserts that elementary education
shall be compulsory and that technical and professional education
shall be made generally available,
Calling attention to the right to development established
in the Declaration on the Right to Development, and reaffirmed
at the World Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna from 14
to 25 June 1993,
Referring to the report entitled "Our Creative Diversity"
by the World Commission on Culture and Development, the report
"Learning: The Treasure Within" prepared for UNESCO
by the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first
Century, the World Education Forum's Dakar Framework for Action
"Education For All: Meeting Our Collective Commitments",
and the conclusions of the Stockholm Intergovernmental Conference
on Cultural Policies for Development,
Aware of the many close links between education, culture,
democracy and development, and stressing that education
and culture are the basis for both democratic participation and
economic and social progress,
Reaffirming its attachment to the promotion and consolidation
of democracy, and acknowledging that democracy, development
and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms are interdependent
and mutually reinforcing, and that democracy is based on the freely
expressed will of the peoples to choose their own political, economic,
social and cultural systems and their full participation in all
aspects of life,
Noting that environmental issues affect both developed
and developing nations and place the survival of humankind at
risk,
Aware of education's potential as an engine for progress
in all dimensions of development - political, economic, social,
cultural and ecological, and also aware that stagnant education
systems and undervalued cultural traditions are a threat to democracy,
Stressing that the major obstacles encountered by women which are difficult to
overcome by legislation are tradition and a mode of education
that impose a distinction between men and women, deny women an
education so condemning them to illiteracy, and maintain them
in ignorance of their political rights; as well as economic obstacles,
which deprive women of their right to education,
Mindful that education is both an important prerequisite
for participation in cultural life and for democratic participation,
and essential to the acceptance and development of democratic
values in a process which must involve every person,
Aware that only strong cultural roots enable individuals
and societies to develop critical awareness, shape the present
and the future and meet the challenges they pose advisedly, and
that protecting and preserving cultural heritage is therefore
an important political task; also aware that cultures are
in constant evolution, and believing that new trends, particularly
globalisation, while linking cultures ever more closely and enriching
interaction, may also pose a challenge to our creative diversity
and to cultural pluralism, making mutual respect all the more
imperative,
Recognising that education and cultural policies must take
account of universal human rights while preserving cultural diversity,
and should therefore promote and respect regional, national and
universal values,
Also recognising that sustainable economic and social development
requires broad democratic participation, which means taking into
account the characteristics of the various cultures,
Further recognising that civil society is playing an increasingly
significant role, especially in culture, and that one of the most
important tasks of cultural policy is to afford creative energies
the scope they need in order to develop,
Aware that modern information and communication technologies
can facilitate and improve access to education and participation
in the democratic process,
Fearing nonetheless that the gap between those who have
access to education and culture and those who do not may continue
to widen, education being a prerequisite for participation in
the information society,
Recognising that globalisation implies not only enormous
challenges for humanity but also opportunities, thanks in particular
to the fantastic expansion of information and communications technologies
which facilitates wider dissemination of universal human values,
concerned nonetheless at the widening "knowledge gap"
- the disparity in the capability of countries or groups within
countries to participate in the gains of technological innovations
and new means of communication - and at the fact that unequal
access to both new and traditional means of cultural expression
can seriously affect an individual's or a community's membership
in, or exclusion from, the knowledge society,
Affirming that women's rights are an integral part of the social, economic, political
and cultural human rights laid down in the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights and as such may on no account be infringed,
Underscoring that international commitments to the advancement
of women and the introduction of appropriate national policies
and programmes are matters that lie solely within the purview
of States, which have to take account of social, economic and
political circumstances, cultural and social values and national
traditions,
Deeply concerned that in 2000, according to the World Education
Forum, more than 100 million children and young people, especially
girls, had no access to primary schooling and 880 million adults
were illiterate,
- Asserts that education is a prerequisite for promoting
sustainable development, securing a healthy environment, ensuring
peace and democracy and achieving the objectives of combating
poverty, slowing population growth, and creating equality between
the sexes, and that culture is a fundamental component of the
development process;
- Demands that women be given the
benefits of education, literacy and vocational training programmes,
and to this end suggests that:
(a) Girls' schooling must be on a par with
that of boys;
(b) Governments, NGOs and other concerned
bodies should organise awareness-building campaigns to encourage
families to send their daughters to school;
(c) Schooling for girls should be subsidised
and school supplies provided free of charge in order to overcome
any material difficulties;
(d) Compulsory schooling should be as long
for girls as for boys;
(e) Efforts to combat adult illiteracy should
be encouraged by introducing and implementing intensive programmes,
with a view to promoting women's participation in political life;
(f) In order to encourage women's participation
in political life and raise awareness of their role in politics,
curricula should include straightforward instruction on such matters
at all levels;
(g) Teaching curricula should be rid of all content implying any
form of gender-based discrimination;
- Stresses the importance of cultural
values and background to the social advancement of women and to
a more balanced vision of men's and women's roles in public and
private life, and the need to avoid undermining the cultural stability
of societies or imposing values alien to the national culture.
To that end, it would be useful to:
(a) Foster gender equality and partnership
in order to generate a synergy between men and women enabling
them to cope equally with the problems of society;
(b) Instil respect for the household duties
that women traditionally perform and acknowledge that these duties
should be shared between the sexes so that both may reconcile
them with their social, professional and political activities;
(c) Show examples and models of equality and
complementarity between men and women, through education both
at home and at school;
(d) Make judicious use of the media to give a positive image of
women's dynamic role in both the family and society; and develop
women's skills and abilities by involving the media in programmes
to disseminate the values and images established in national and
international strategies for the advancement of women;
- Emphasises the need to design education and cultural
policies that contribute significantly to sustainable political,
social, environmental and economic development, in particular
by improving access to education and culture;
- Stresses the importance of viewing education and cultural
policies as key components of an independent and sustainable development
policy and ensuring that they are implemented properly in coordination
with policies in other fields; urges both developed and
developing nations to reinforce environmental education in school
curricula and in the media; stresses the
important role that the media play in the treatment of issues
relating to women and in shaping the dominant culture and values,
and emphasises the need to instil in society a balanced
vision of the role of women and ensure that both men and women
enjoy the same cultural and political education;
- Underscores the need to promote knowledge and
understanding of cultural and linguistic diversity through education
and cultural policies and to develop such diversity in accordance
with principles that foster peace, human rights and democracy;
- Calls for the adoption of cultural policies which help
to ensure that every person is able to exercise his or her right
to participate freely in cultural life, as set forth in Article
27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
- Emphasises the need to place education high among the
priorities of national budgets and to promote actively education
conducive to the mastery and creative use of science and new information
technologies by the younger generations and the training of teachers
in science and new technologies;
- Strongly emphasises that the development of education
calls for a vast increase in international assistance to education
in developing countries, urges that the latter be given
all possible assistance in their efforts to promote democratic
values through education, and recommends in particular
promoting cooperation among developing countries so that they
benefit from knowledge of other cultures and other experiences
of development;
- Emphasises the importance of ensuring
the financial and social independence of women, since financially
independent women are more inclined to participate in political
life; and to that end:
- To take the necessary steps to promote women's
access to vocational training and the job market on an equal footing
with men;
- To ensure that women have no difficulty
in obtaining bank loans and credits, and to help them to set up
small companies;
- Calls for the intensification of political efforts
to preserve tangible and intangible cultural heritage, and advocates
that every culture that respects others be accorded the right
to equal acknowledgement of its identity;
- Urges all parliamentarians to familiarise
themselves with the conventions relating to women's rights and
the resolutions adopted by conferences on women, to publicise
them through all local, national and regional bodies, and to take
account of them in national legislation and strategies to improve
the status of women;
- Calls on parliaments, governments
and NGOs to step up their efforts to involve women actively in
political and economic life, to alert developing countries to
this issue and to make them aware of the need to eliminate prejudice
against women;
- Implores all parliaments, governments,
international agencies and NGOs to acknowledge the social, political
and economic impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic on men, women, and
children, and to actively implement and/or accelerate educational
programmes to curb the spread of the pandemic and to encourage
people to retain HIV negative status;
- Calls for greater involvement of civil society in education
and cultural policy;
- Expresses its conviction that all States must promote,
at every stage of education, an active civic learning process
enabling all to become acquainted with their history and cultural
roots, the functioning and activities of local, national and international
political institutions, to become familiar with the procedures
for settling fundamental issues and to participate in the cultural
life of the community and in public affairs, focusing in particular
on gender equality, and stresses that such participation
should as far as possible result in ever closer ties between education
and action to resolve local, national and international problems;
- Underscores the importance of utilising modern information
and communication media to facilitate access to education and
culture while respecting the rights to freedom of opinion and
freedom of information set forth in Article 19 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights;
- Stresses the need to encourage the active participation
of civil society in the media in order to draw attention to the
issues addressed by this resolution;
- Emphasises the necessity of developing the technical
infrastructure of modern information and communication systems
in such a way that they can be used by as many people as possible,
and of promoting new media skills through education and training
programmes; calls for wide-ranging efforts by developed
countries to bridge the digital divide by actively providing developing
countries with both technical assistance and support for education
in information technologies, and urges States to monitor
Internet sites and ban access to unacceptable ones, particularly
child pornography;
- Invites States and other players to work actively to
close the gender gap and to make education for women and girls
the top priority of education policy; urges States to adopt
cultural policies that respect gender equality and fully recognise
women's equality of rights and freedom of expression, thereby
ensuring their ability to participate fully in all aspects of
cultural, economic, social and political life; and calls for the involvement
of women in the preparation and implementation of general development
policies, in which they are both actors and beneficiaries;
- Stresses the need to implement the education policy
commitments adopted by the World Education Forum in its Dakar
Framework for Action "Education For All: Meeting Our Collective
Commitments" and the "World Declaration on Education
for All" as swiftly and effectively as possible, in particular
by:
- Ensuring that by 2015 all children, especially girls, children
in difficult circumstances and children from ethnic minorities,
have access to free, high-quality compulsory primary education
and complete such education;
- Achieving a 50 per cent improvement in adult literacy levels
by 2015;
- Eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education
by 2005, and achieving gender equality in education by 2015;
- Backing UNESCO in its task of mobilising and orchestrating support
for countries in their efforts to fulfil the Education for All
(EFA) commitments at national, regional and international level;
- Calls for regional and international cooperation in
the field of education and cultural policy, in order to respond
to the challenges of globalisation and technological progress;
- Calls on the members of the IPU to report on the implementation
of and follow-up to this resolution through the reporting mechanism
established within the IPU.
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