Sofia Valdivielso Gomez

LITERACY AND THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS: ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACKWARDS^

Introduction
My aim in this article is to present some reflections on the issue of literacy of women and to relate them with what has been agreed upon in Confintea V held in Hamburg in 1997, the goals of Education for All (EFA) the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Beijing+10.

A Bit of History
Traditionally women have been signified to be 'for others', never for themselves. This conceptualisation is also present in the discourses about literacy. This becomes evident when we analyse, from a gender perspective, the different documents that came from the first four conferences on 'Literacy and Adult Education', from Ellsinore in 1949 to Paris in 1985. The traditional discourse justifies women's literacy based on the need to improve family health, well-being, educational access and so on. Thus, it is seen as a tool for other ends rather than for women themselves.
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This conceptualisation of women's literacy is still predominant m the majority of governmental discourses and above all in institutions such as the World Bank (WB), the Intemational Monetary Fund (IMF) or the Orgamsation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which often reduce literacy to the acquisition of technical skills. Fortunately there are also other discourses, although they are a minority which look at literacy from a more holistic approach where the acquisition of technical skills is only one of its different dimensions. This more complex perspective stresses the need to incorporate in the definition other skills related to the cultural and subjective context where people are immersed m and interact with each other. This more complex approach to literacy became more explicit in 1975 during the Intemational Symposium on Literacy whose goal was to assess the results of policies implemented in relation to literacy dunng the last decade. The functionalist ideas which were central during the 1960s began to be criticised by different sectors, which asserted that - after a decade of hegemony - literacy programmes had not had the expected results. The Persepolis declaration starts by saying, 'The number of illiterates is constantly growing^ This reflects the failure of development policies that are indifferent to man and to the satisfaction of his basic needs' (UNESCO, 1975, p. 149). This failure opened the door for other more critical discourses about literacy which understood it not as a process of adaptation but as a process of consciousness whose goal was the liberation and transformation of human beings in the context where they were active. These new ideas, which emerged from the popular education movements, will not leave the field of literacy From Persepolis these ideas have been present in the debate, in action as well as in conceptualisation and research. This became evident in the declaration from the symposium: ...considered literacy to be not just the process of leaming the skills of reading, writing and arithmetic, but a contribution to the liberation of man and to his full development. Thus conceived literacy creates the conditions for the acquisition of a critical consciousness of the contradictions of society in which man lives and of its aims; it also stimulates initiative and his participation in the creation of projects capable of acting upon the world of transforming it, and of defining the aims of an authentic human development. It should open the way to a mastery of techniques and human relations. Literacy is not an end in itself It is a fundamental human right. (UNESCO, 1975, p. 150)

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The Persepolis declaration goes beyond a merely functional concept and includes cultural and personal dimensions. Literacy ceases to be seen as a tool for 'Leaming to Do' and is understood as a tool for the process of 'Leaming to Be'. Even though the issue of women was dealt with only indirectly in this symposium, I believe it is important to make reference to it, mainly because it opened a door for counter-hegemonic discourses. It represents, therefore, a tuming away from a theoretical and ideological perspective. However, this discourse also portrays women as minors since what is important for this perspective is the emancipation of the less favoured classes, and not the emancipation of women.

The Decade of the 1990s

The 1990s began with the World Conference 'Education for AU' in Jomtien and it ended with its review in Dakar in 2000. In Jomtien all the data on illiteracy in the world was presented and the figures were so outrageous - more than one thousand million people absolutely illiterate and around 25 per cent of the population of industrialised countries defined as functionally illiterate - that it was decided to declare 1990 as the intemational year of literacy in order to make the whole world aware that such figures at the end of the twentieth century were inadmissible. However, ten years later in Dakar it was possible to confirm that the situation had not improved as expected. This revealed the failure of the literacy policies, something that had already been denounced 25 years before in Persepolis. The intemational conferences celebrated during the first half of the 1990s, especially the IV World Conference on Women of the United Nations held in Beijing in 1995, opened up a discussion that led to a deeper reflection about the linkages between education and empowerment of women. In this conference the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action were approved. The Declaration encouraged govemments to commit themselves to mobilising the necessary resources to implement the platform before the end of the twentieth century. The Beijing Conference, attended by 180 govemmental delegates and 2500 NGOs, adopted the claims on gender equity and equality, linking actions which promoted the advancement of women with the protection of their human rights, together with their access to decision-making and shared responsibilities with men in equal conditions.

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By defining 12 main areas of concem where women and girls continue to face barriers in the recognition of their rights and by defining measures to overcome those obstacles, the Beijing Platform for Action (BPA) became part of the women's world and part of their different and sometimes difficult realities. Thus, the platform forged an ethical and political commitment among the govemments that signed the document. In the current decade, however, these commitments are far from being met. The Beijing discourse was present in CONFITEA V, celebrated in Hamburg in 1997, through the different groups of women who gathered to develop a coordinated strategy. It was present in each working group and in each workshop. Women expressed themselves with a united voice to defend gender justice. The Hamburg conference, attended by 1500 participants from all the regions of the planet, 40 per cent of them women, can be considered the most important moment in the history of adult education in the defence of women's rights to education at a global level. For the first time women themselves were speaking out and putting pressure on incorporating their demands in the different agendas in equal conditions. The need to deal with women's issues from two perspectives was emphasised at this conference. On the one hand it was important to tackle the prevalent exclusion of women by putting forward the following issues: women's representation and equal access to education; a gender-sensitive participative pedagogy; the perverse effects of violence against women; globalisation and stmctural adjustment; and the promotion of women's organisations. On the other hand it was important to ensure that gender issues were raised transversally within all and each one of the topics that were dealt with at the conference. As stated by Celia Eccher, General Secretary of the Intemational Council for Adult Education (ICAE) at CONFITEA V: the last 25 years represent a progressive road of negotiation, transaction, stmggle and conflict to reach an horizon of gender social justice. All through these years women and civil society, grassroots organisations and different corporative groups, governments and the intemational organisations, and specially women's NGOs have put the issue of women in the social sphere and have contributed to raise consciousness and to move forward in the achievement of women's rights. (UNESCO, 1997)

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Both 'The Agenda for the Future' and the 'Hamburg Declaration' emphasised the importance of equality of opportunities in all areas of education in order to allow women of all ages to contribute to society with all their potential. Hamburg gave birth to a more inclusive vision of literacy and adult education which understands this as part of a life process. Without denying its instmmental character it has also been recognised as a fundamental right of every human being. The Hamburg Declaration highlighted literacy as a powerful concept to guarantee sustainable development; to promote democracy, justice and gender equity; and to contribute to the construction of a world where violent conflicts would be replaced by a culture of peace based on dialogue and justice. It goes, therefore, beyond mere technique and becomes a basic condition for the exercise of citizenship that can only be exerted from the building of consciousness and autonomy.

Review Processes on the Implementation of Agreements

In April 2000 the second conference on Education for All was celebrated in Dakar. Its main goal was to review and follow up the commitments subscribed to in the last decade. It was recognised then that although major improvements had taken place in the area ofthe right to education over the previous ten years, the goals proposed in the conference of Jomtein had not yet being achieved. On that subject, point 5 ofthe Dakar Framework of Action states the following: The EFA2000 Assessments demonstrate that there have been considerable progress in many countries. But it is unacceptable that in the year 2000 more that 113 million children have no access to primary education and 880 million adult are illiterate... In the words ofthe UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan: The most tragic and unfair dimension of the situation is the following: ofthe more than 110 million children who should be in school but are not, two-thirds are girls. For them, there is a double denial of their human rights; they have also been denied what has been stated in the first page of the United Nations Declaration: equality of rights among men and women. Two out ofthe six goals established in Dakar are related to literacy. They are the following:

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Expanding adult literacy; 'Achieving a 50 per cent improvement in levels of adult literacy in the year 2015, especially for women, and equitable access to basic and continuing education for all adults.' Improving quality of education; 'Improving all aspects of quality of education and assuring excellence for all so that recognised and measurable leaming outcomes are achieved by all, especially in literacy, numeracy, and essential life skills.'

In September 2000, 189 world leaders signed the Millennium Declaration, committing themselves to 'free our fellow men, women, and children from the abject and dehumanising conditions of extreme poverty conditions' before 2015. Much progress has been made since then and a few countries have reached, ten years before it was planne4 some of the MDGs. At this summit eight MDGs were approved, with 18 targets and 48 indicators in order to measure the advancement in each one of them. For the first time, concrete and measurable targets were established, which is progress in itself. In addition, the goals and targets related to education and literacy are the same as the ones stated in Dakar. This leads us to think that we have begun to understand the need to move towards more holistic statements in the search for solutions to the problems that we are currently facing. However, this hope is tumed on its head in the light of a careful analysis of the discourse that is being built around these goals. We will start with the goals and then discuss some of the limitations that have been expressed in connection with them. The goals and targets are: 1 Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger The target for 2015 is to halve the proportion of people whose income is less than one dollar a day and the proportion of people who suffer from hunger. 2 Universal primary education The target for 2015 is to ensure that children everywhere, boys and girls alike, would be able to complete a full course of primary schooling. 3 Gender equality and empowerment of women Targets for 2005 and 2015: eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and at all levels of education no later than 2015. 4 Reduce child mortality Target for 2015: reduced by two-thirds the under-five mortality rate. 5 Improve maternal health Target for 2015; reduced by three-quarters the matemal mortality ratio. 6 Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases Target for 2015: have halted and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS, the incidence of malaria and other major diseases.
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7 Environmental sustainability Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the losses of environment resources. Halve by 2015 the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. 8 Global partnership for development Develop further open, rule-base4 predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial systems. It includes commitment to good govemance, development and poverty alleviation both nationally and intemationally. These goals are interrelated with the EFA goals, therefore the development strategies should deal with them in a coordinated way. For example, the process of promotion of literacy becomes inefficient if at the same time the process of empowerment of women is not taken into account; progress in gender equality has an immediate impact on poverty alleviation; reducing the proportion of people that live in conditions of extreme poverty requires sustainable environmental policies which guarantee access to safe drinking water which would not degrade the ecosystem; promoting universal schooling for girls and boys - especially girls, because they are the first to be excluded from education - requires that schools' infrastmctures be adjusted to the different needs of boys and girls. We know, for example, that girls desert schools because there are no proper washrooms for them. All this becomes impossible in contexts where there are high rates of insecurity, and none of these goals will be reached in conflict zones. Therefore the achievement of these goals implies global and complex approaches, not only to literacy but also to life. However - and this is where we begin to despair - this is not what we are witnessing. Obsession with measurements reduces complex processes to simple numerical indicators. In addition, there is a retum to the use of indirect measures to assess the level of literacy of a particular country, like schooling and years of schooling. If we search, for example, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics website for the indicator on levels of literacy in one of the countries considered as developed, it does not appear. It is assumed that in Europe and America illiteracy does not exist. Different types of indicators are used in the statistics of UNESCO - one for developing countries and a different one for developed countries. If the key words 'Millennium Goals' and 'Europe' are entered in an Intemet search engine, the results contain bulletins and actions that are being carried out by the Foreign Relations and Cooperation Commission to favour the achievement of the MDGs in Third World countries. There is not a single mention ofthe actions oriented to develop those goals in the European Union. The underlying issue is that Europe sees itself as beyond the MDGs - but is it really like that?

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Between 1994 and 1998 intemational research on adult literacy was implemented in the context of 20 countries of the OECD. This research departs from the understanding that literacy cannot be measured as an independent variable any longer - something that one has or does not have - but must be seen rather as a continuum along a five-level scale. The Intemational Research on Adult Literacy (IRAL) does not analyse data segregated by sex, which means the actual situation cannot be known. Since there is no disaggregated data it is not possible to form a picture of what happens with women in the countries where the survey was implemented. In general the data shows that between 25 and 30 per cent of the adult population in the participant countries from the so-called 'developed' world are at literacy levels 1 and 2. It is difficult to incorporate people classified at these levels into the benefits of the knowledge society. We can assert, then, than one-third of the population of the countries that participated in the research have senous problems in adapting to the changes in which societies are currently immersed. Since disaggregated data is not available, it cannot be known exactly what proportion of men and women are classified at the different levels of literacy. However it is known that the majority of those in the world classed as illiterate are women; therefore, it can be asserted that the majority of the population of these countries classified at levels 1 and 2 are women. These are the results of this research. However, the 2005 report on the EFA follow-up, entitled 'Assessment on the Quality of Education' uses a definition of literacy that has been shown to be inefficient. Again, the definition is'the ability to write and read with comprehension a simple text about daily life'. Furthermore these results are drawn from indirect measurements, like years of schooling. According to this criterion, 99 per cent of the population of the developed countries are literate. Following this definition the results are as in Table 1. So we can read in the report that 'according to estimations there are around 800 millions of adults illiterate in the world, which represents 18 per cent of the total adult population'. Among the facts that call for attention is the statement that '64 per cent of the illiterate adult population are women'. Another fact that comes out of reading the chart and that is mentioned in the report is that 'adult illiteracy is unequally distributed geographically, since it is almost exclusively a phenomenon of the developing countries. Developed countries and countnes in transition present literacy ratio close to 99 per cent and together they add up to 1.3 per cent of the illiterate of the world'. For more than 20 years we have been revealing the limitations and inefficiency of gathering indirect data such as years of schooling and census. The need for direct measures of literacy through the use of vis-a-vis standard
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tests has been emphasised. Nevertheless, in spite of having direct measures of literacy of the adult population in Europe, Canada and the Umted States which puts 30 per cent below the level 3 of literacy, these results are not taken mto account because in the EFA and MDG follow-up indicators it is assumed that 99 per cent of the population of these countries is literate. Would this mean that this information is being recognised internally and yet extemally other information is shown? The Literacy Decade promoted by the United Nations started in 2003 as a strategy to renew the agreements and the efforts to improve literacy m the world This decade is part of the EFA context, which in its fourth goal proposes to reduce by 50 per cent the levels of illiteracy by the year 2015, especially for women, and in the same way to reach equity in access to primary and permanent education for all the adult population. Three indicators are measuring the advancement in these goals: percentage of literacy of youth (15-24 years old) percentage of literacy of adult population (24 years and above) percentage of literacy of women and men In a similar way, the MDGs are using two indicators of literacy: percentage of literacy of youth (same as in the EFA goals) proportion of women's literacy in relation to men's (15-24 years old)

In relation to literacy, the only age range mentioned is that of 15-24 years old. This is to say that the indicator of literacy of MDGs is focused only on that age range, but what happens with the population older than 25? Don't they need to be literate for a country to reach development? Different experts in literacy state that the utility of these indicators is limited because they go back to an understanding of literacy as something that one has (literate) or does not have (illiterate). In reality, literacy is defined as a continuum of skills and abilities. Moreover, when the different levels m which illiteracy is distributed or the diversity of situations in which people are going to use literacy are not taken into account, then the complexity and multiple dimensions of the phenomenon of literacy becomes reduced to a single figure which simply does not gives us any useful information. Confitea V clearly stated that the phenomenon of literacy is a complex one that cannot be reduced to the ability to read or write a simple text, and yet we discover that the Millennium Goals and Education for All are measuring in ways that are recognised as inadequate.
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Beijing+10
Among the process of reviewing the conferences and intemational summits of the 1990s, the one that took place in New York in Febmary-March 2005 is of special importance for women. During two weeks the meaning of the approval from the Beijing Platform for Action, more than a decade ago, was revised and evaluated. Over the ten years that have passed since the Beijing Conference, some progress can be identified in making the agreements of the BPA a reality. In the field of legislation some laws have been introduced to tackle the problem of gender violence, but in general they are still too weak to impose sanctions against these crimes. In the same way, the issue of gender equity is present in official discourses and even in governmental policies and programmes of the majority of the countries, although still at insufficient levels or lacking consistency. It can be said that gender discourse has become 'politically correct', although in institutional practices it does not always result in the advancement of women. A common feature is the persistence of barriers for the full achievement of the consensus of Beijing, and thus for the recognition and applicability of women's rights. The critical problems surfacing, which are derived from the economic models and the neoliberal globalisation process, are numerous: weakening of the role of the state together with an increasing process of privatisation of public goods and services; growth of poverty and indigence with a disproportionate and differentiated impact on women and children; endemic unemployment and precarious conditions of female employment; inequality of income distribution; persistence and increase of violence against women; intrusion of religions on lay issues; conservatism and fundamentalist reactions against sexual and reproductive rights; militarism; ecological imbalance which is the result of the implementation of unsustainable development policies, and so on. These represent some of the obstacles for the improvement of life conditions, specially for women. The actions of women's organisations present in New York were precisely oriented to tackle the attacks against the Platform for Action by the more conservative forces, headed by the North American delegation and their allies, who questioned the interpretation of each one of the terms around BPA. Those were two weeks of very hard negotiations by groups and women's networks, and also by some of the delegations that did not even touch upon any of the terms agreed on and approved in 1995. This event has two interpretations. The first would be to say that the process of reviewing Beijing+10 was a blatant failure given the fact that there was no advancement at all on what had been agreed upon ten years before. The second more optimistic, would be to say that the fact
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that the text of Beijing was not being modified is in itself an achievement, particularly given the backward movement in human rights that we are witnessing at present. The women present in New York also analysed the Millennium Development Goals and expressed several concems. Some that can be highlighted are the following; They are not sustaining key elements such as human rights, the achievement of peace, the reduction of military expenditure, the fight against racism and xenophobia. They displace the framework of human rights and social justice; they do not take into account situations of discrimination against sexual minorities. They do not represent a global vision about gender equality, equity and empowerment of women. When women are mentioned their role is reduced to matemity and caring for others. They abandon the legal principles already established when they exclude sexual and reproductive rights. They are completely indifferent to the needs and the types of education and services for adolescents and youth. They keep silent about gender violence such as sexual and intra-family violence. They do not recognise the differentiated impact of poverty on women's health. There is a prevalence of a neoliberal philosophy with an individualistic approach, which omits the eradication of poverty and structural transformation. Health is conceptualised as disease and death (HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, measles), lacking an integral approach. They confuse the means to reach an end with the ends and priorities in themselves. They promote the expansion of the influence of the World Bank and the IMF to the detriment of the UN. They refrain from focusing on the deeper causes of the problems, focusing mainly on a technical approach.

Much is at stake for women after the changes and political decisions that have taken place in the world after 11 September. This includes the role of the United Nations which we see as an important though disputed place where key issues are debated and decided. We women cannot allow that our points of views are not taken into account on vital issues such as globalisation, govemance, poverty, peace, security and human rights.
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Social movements and social networks have gained an important space inside the system and processes of the United Nations. We should not give in to the conservative forces that would like us to disappear from this space, so it is important to continue advancing and strengthening what has been already achieved. If the reviewing of the different conferences and summits that took place in the 1990s and which are beginning now do not take into account the voices coming from civil society it will mean a big step backwards because the future of the work at a global level will be affected. In addition, it is very important to be proactive in the process and go beyond the documents of the UN. It is important to use these reviewing processes as a means to get into critical dialogue at all decision-making levels. In this way, in the last World Social Fomm it was manifest that: to face globalisation and neoliberalism, economic and social justice should be promoted; to face fundamentalism, democracy should be strengthened (and this can only be achieved by being more radical and moving towards more participatory and deliberate models of democracy); to face militarism, peace should be defended; and to face any form of discrimination, human rights and equality for all should be supported.

Sofia Valdivielso Gomez has a PhD in Psycho Pedagogy. She is currently a lecturer in Social Education in the University of Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, Spain. She has been an adult basic education teacher for more than a decade, specifically in literacy programmes for women. For two years she worked as associated expert to the UNESCO Institute for Education based in Hamburg. She coordinated the research on Functional Literacy in the Canaries and was a member of the nationai research team on the same topic. She was the co-coordinator of the International Research on Participation in Adult Education. She is a member of the Gender and Education International Network, affiliated to the International Council for Adult Education.

References
Comision interagencial (PNUD, UNESCO, UNICEF, BANCO MUNDIAL). 1990. Deelaracion Mundial sobre Educacion Para Todos y Marco de accion para satisfacer las necesidades bdsicas de aprendizaje. New York. ONU. 1995. IV Conferencia Mundial sobre la Mujer: Plataforma de Accion y la Deelaracion de Beijing. New York. Department of Public Information, United Nations. ONU. 2000. Informe y evaluacion de la aplicacion de la Plataforma de Accion de Beijing. New York. Department of Public Information, United Nations.

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UNESCO. 1975. Simposio Intemacional de Alfabetizacion. En OIE/EDA.1981. Monografias sobre Educacion de Adultos. Madrid; Oficina de Educacion Iberoamericana. UNESCO. 1997. Educacion de personas adultas. La Declaracion de Hamburgo. La Agenda para el Futuro. CONFINTEA V Hamburgo; Instituto Unesco para la Educacion. World Education Forum. 2000. Education For All: Meeting Our Collective Commitments. Text adopted 26-28 April 2000, Dakar, Senegal. UNESCO. 2003. Outcomes of the Meeting, 8-10 January 2003, for Defining a Final Strategy and Planning the Programme of Literacy Assessment. Organised by UNESCO Institute for Statistics and the World Bank at UIS, Montreal (Canada). United Nations. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly [on the report of the Third Committee (A/56/572)] 56/116. United Nations Literacy Decade; Education for All. United Nations. October 1999. General Assembly Resolution on Education for All. A/54/595 of the 54th session of the United Nations General Assembly.

Web pages
Division for the Advancement of Women: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/csw49/documents.html European Commission http://europa.eu.int/comm/index_es.htm European Commission Report on Millennium Development Goals 2000-2004 http://www.undp.org/mdg/EC.pdf Instituto UNESCO de Estadistica: Programa de Evaluacion y de Monitoreo de la Alfabetizacion. http://www.uis.unesco.org/TEMPLATE/pdf/LAMP/LAMPLeafletSpa.pdf United Nations Literary Decade: http;//portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php-URL_ID=5000&URL_DO= DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201 .html United Nations Millennium Development Goals; http;//www.un.org/millenniumgoals/index.html World Bank; Millennium Development Goals http://ddp-ext.worldbank.org/ext/MDG/home.do
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Electronic Newsletters
Laredva. Revista electronica de la Red de Educacion Popular entre Mujeres de America Latina. N: 349, 357, http://www.repem.org.uy/la_red_va.htm Voices Rising. Revista electronica de la Oficina de Educacion y Genero (GEO) del Comite Internacional de Educacion de Personas Adultas (ICAE) http://www.icae.org.uy/

Notes
^ Translated from the Spanish by Lorena Nufiez.

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