After taking almost an hour to break down an impressively stubborn North Korea, Brazil will be hoping to cut loose against the more attack minded Ivory Coast on Sunday in Port Elizabeth. The Ivorians face a tougher challenge than their opener against Portugal, which finished 0-0. Neutrals everywhere will be praying for a better game than that sorry affair.
Can Les Éléphants blow Group G wide open? Or will Robinho, Kaka, Fabiano et al crank their samba soccer mojo into full working order?
We’re not in the business of predicting football scores at UNICEF UK, but our presence in over 190 countries around the world means we’re uniquely placed to shine a light on the issues that matter to us – children’s rights in particular, and how development is helping, or hindering, their full attainment.
Girls play football in a schoolyard in the city of Olinda in Brazil. The game was organized by the local NGO PETI (Programme for the Eradication of Child Labour), a UNICEF-assisted organisation. © UNICEF/NYHQ2006-1340/Claudio Versiani
This is one of the reasons why over course of the World Cup, we’re singling out different competing countries and looking at how they’re doing at achieving the Millennium Development Goals. These are eight goals, including eradicating extreme poverty, ensuring environmental sustainability and achieving universal primary education, which 189 countries signed up to in 2000, pledging to achieve by 2015.
UNICEF not only supports the MDGs, but we have taken them on as part of our mandate. Yesterday we published an open letter to EU leaders from UNICEF’s Executive Director Anthony’s Lake, which urged them to adopt a strong position on the MDGs ahead of September’s UN Summit on the MDGs in New York. Next week we’ll be launching a campaign to ask David Cameron to attend the UN meeting himself and ensure the UK Government helps achieve a fairer future for children around the world. Find out more about this campaign and how you can take action by signing up to our Campaign Network.
So far we’ve looked at how South Africa and Mexico are doing at MDG 4: Reduce Child Mortality, and on Wednesday we focused on how Chile and Honduras are faring in MDG1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
Today, it’s MDG 2: Achieve universal primary education. That is, to ensure that by 2015, young boys and girls everywhere will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.
Brazil are doing pretty well. The net enrolment ratio in primary education for both sexes (translation: how many boys and girls out of 100 are going to primary school) went up from 85.4% in 1991 to 94% in 2008. Not bad, but considering neighbouring Peru and Argentina are both on 99%, that’s a definite ‘could do better’.
The Ivory Coast have also managed to give their primary school enrolment stats a sizeable boost. But they have started from a much lower base: 45.4% in 1991, going up to 62% in 2008.
This means that more than a third of children in the Ivory Coast are not able to complete a full course of primary school. Sadly, the pattern in the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa isn’t much better – up from 58% in 2000 to 74%. In developing regions in general, net enrolment in primary education is around 88%, up from 83% in 2000.
This is simply not good enough. But UNICEF is working to put this right by engaging in outreach and advocacy, aiding countries in policymaking, promoting early child-care, and helping schools provide supplies, safe water and sanitation.
Hugh Reilly is Web Editor at UNICEF UK.