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VIDEO Opening-welcoming from OISE/UT Dr. Karen Mundy - founding member of Canadian GCE Scool Children Honourable Aileen Carroll Honourable Tony Ianno Christophe Zoungrana - ANCEFA Marilies Rettig – Education International

Home > Action > Lead-Up to Launch

'Canadian Teachers’ Federation focus on Education for All (EFA) National Press Club Newsmaker Luncheon

Launch
On the evening of April 25 representatives from civil society organisations gathered at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto (OISE/UT) to officially launch the Canadian Global Campaign for Education Alliance. Invited speakers included a founding member of the Canadian GCE, school children, Members of Parliament, a representative from the African Coalition on Education for All (ANCEFA) and an executive board member from Education International. In her remarks, Canada’s Minister of International Cooperation, Honourable Aileen Carroll, made an announcement of CIDA’s $24 million
pledge to support two new basic education initiatives in Nicaragua and Kenya. Honourable Tony Ianno, Minister of State (Families and Caregivers), received ‘cut-out friends’ from
students participating in the ‘Send My Friend to School Project’.

Forum
Subsequent to the launch, on April 26, the Alliance held a day-long forum at the Munk Centre for International Studies in Toronto on the role of civil society (in Canada and internationally) in the achievement of EFA, the 2nd Millennium Development Goal. The programme encompassed an overall aim to encourage cooperative action on the part of Canadian civil society and to build a lasting coalition that can hold the Canadian government to its EFA promises.

In the morning, the forum opened with a plenary in which Nick Burnett, Director of the Global Monitoring Report on Education for All, provided an overview of the EFA Challenge and Christophe Zoungrana from ANCEFA spoke of Civil Society’s role in EFA ( video ).Delegates then attended thematic sessions on EFA:

• Session 1, Reforming Bilateral AID ( CIDA Presentation of Fast Track Initiative );
• Session 2, New Roles for Civil Society in the South;
• Session 3, HIV/AIDS and Education, Education in Emergency and Post Conflict Situations, Getting Girls in School.

After lunch, participants reconvened in a plenary to address a discussion paper by Dr. Karen Mundy, founding member of the Canadian GCE and Canada Research Chair, University of Toronto. See Dr. Mundy’s presentation. Delegates then divided into working groups to put forward concrete action points for the Canadian GCE under the following headings:

• Group A, A New Framework for Working with CIDA – First Steps;
• Group B, Key Priorities for EFA Advocacy, Research and Development Education on the Right to Education within Canada;
• Group C, Innovations in North-South Civil Society Partnerships – Ways Forward;
• Group D, Concrete Steps towards Building Information Sharing and Coordination among Canadian NGOs, Citizens Groups, Unions, Churches, Research Organisations and Others.

These groups also made use of Powerpoint presentations. Here is the content from those presentasions in Word format (pdf versions will be uploaded shortly): Group A, Group B, Group C, Group D

Finally, working groups came together in a final plenary.

For more information read the Background Paper for the Canadian Global Campaign for Education Forum.