TITLE OF THE PROJECT

UNESCO: TOGETHER WE ERADICATE POVERTY.

Submitted By:

M.Chandana (2018LLB109)
SAtyender Saharan (2018LLB098)
Sejal Lahoti (2018LLB082)

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Table of Contents

Introduction ...............................................................................................................................4

WHY UNESCO PRESENCES IS REQUIRED? .......................................................................5

2. HOW UNESCO IS HELPING THE WORLD TO ERADICATE POVERTY ........................5

3. HOW CAN EDUCATIONS PLAYS AN IMPORTANT .........................................................6

4. HOW CAN UNESCO CONTRIBUTE ...................................................................................7

INDIAN CASES LAWS SHOWING SIGNIFICANCE OF EDUCATION ...............................9

CASE 1................................................................................................................................... 9

CASE 2................................................................................................................................. 11

Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 13

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 Introduction

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO;French:

Organisation des Nations unies pour l'éducation, la science et la culture) is a specialized agency of
the United Nations (UN) based in Paris, France. Its declared purpose is to contribute to promoting
international collaboration in education, sciences, and culture in order to increase universal respect
for justice, the rule of law, and human rights along with fundamental freedom proclaimed in the
United Nations Charter. It is the successor of the League of Nations' International Committee on
Intellectual Cooperation.

UNESCO has 193 member states and 11 associate members. Most of its field offices are "cluster"
offices that cover three or more countries; national and regional offices also exist.

UNESCO pursues its objectives through five major programs: education, natural sciences,
social/human sciences, culture and communication/information. Projects sponsored by UNESCO
include literacy, technical, and teacher-training programs, international science programs, the
promotion of independent media and freedom of the press, regional and cultural history projects,
the promotion of cultural diversity, translations of world literature, international cooperation
agreements to secure the world's cultural and natural heritage (World Heritage Sites) and to
preserve human rights, and attempts to bridge the worldwide digital divide. It is also a member of
the United Nations Development Group.

UNESCO's aim is "to contribute to the building of peace, the eradication of poverty, sustainable
development and intercultural dialogue through education, the sciences, culture, communication
and information". Other priorities of the organization include attaining quality Education For All
and lifelong learning, addressing emerging social and ethical challenges, fostering cultural
diversity, a culture of peace and building inclusive knowledge societies through information and
communication.

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The broad goals and objectives of the international community—as set out in the internationally
agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)—underpin all
UNESCO strategies and activities

WHY UNESCO PRESENCES IS REQUIRED?

More than 700 million people, or 10% of the world population, still live in extreme poverty and is
struggling to fulfil the most basic needs like health, education, and access to water and sanitation,
to name a few. The majority of people living on less than $1.90 a day live in sub-Saharan Africa.
Worldwide, the poverty rate in rural areas is 17.2 per cent—more than three times higher than in
urban areas.

Having a job does not guarantee a decent living. In fact, 8 per cent of employed workers and their
families worldwide lived in extreme poverty in 2018. Poverty affects children disproportionately.
One out of five children live in extreme poverty. Ensuring social protection for all children and
other vulnerable groups is critical to reduce poverty.

Poverty has many dimensions, but its causes include unemployment, social exclusion, and high
vulnerability of certain populations to disasters, diseases and other phenomena which prevent them
from being productive. Growing inequality is detrimental to economic growth and undermines
social cohesion, increasing political and social tensions and, in some circumstances, driving
instability and conflicts.

2. HOW UNESCO IS HELPING THE WORLD TO ERADICATE POVERTY

UNESCO HAS GET CERTAIN GOALS TO ERADICATE POVERTY THOSE GOALS ARE
AS FOLLOWS,
A. By 2030, eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere, currently measured as people
living on less than $1.25 a day

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B. BY 2030, reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living
in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions
C. Implement nationally appropriate social protection systems and measures for all, including
floors, and by 2030 achieve substantial coverage of the poor and the vulnerable
D. By 2030, ensure that all men and women, in particular the poor and the vulnerable, have equal
rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership and control over
land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology
and financial services, including microfinance
E. By 2030, build the resilience of the poor and those in vulnerable situations and reduce their
exposure and vulnerability to climate-related extreme events and other economic, social and
environmental shocks and disasters
F. Ensure significant mobilization of resources from a variety of sources, including through
enhanced development cooperation, in order to provide adequate and predictable means for
developing countries, in particular least developed countries, to implement programmes and
policies to end poverty in all its dimensions
G. Create sound policy frameworks at the national, regional and international levels, based on
pro-poor and gender-sensitive development strategies, to support accelerated investment in
poverty eradication actions

3. HOW CAN EDUCATIONS PLAYS AN IMPORTANT

2. Reducing global poverty through universal primary and secondary education

The number of children, adolescents and youth who are excluded from education fell steadily in
the decade following 2000, but UIS data show that this progress essentially stopped in recent
years; the total number of out-of-school children, adolescents and youth has remained nearly the
same at around 264 million for the past three years.
The world is moving towards gender parity in out-of-school rates

The decline in out-of-school rates and numbers over the past 15 years was accompanied by a
reduction in gender disparity at the global level. Historically, girls and young women were more
likely to be excluded from education. However, the male and female out-of-school rates for the

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lower secondary- and upper secondary-age populations are now nearly identical, while the gender

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gap among primary-age children dropped from more than five percentage points in 2000 to less
than two percentage
points in 2015. The trend in gender parity can also be seen in the values of the adjusted gender
parity index (GPIA) of the out-of-school rate in , a new indicator developed and released by the
UIS for the first time in this paper The adjusted GPI of the global primary out-of-school rate fell
from 1.31 in 2000 to a low of 1.11 in 2011, but in recent years, there was a small uptick, caused
by a continued decline of the male out-of-school rate combined with a small increase in the female
out-of-school rate. This means that, globally, girls of primary age are still more likely to be out of
school

Far too many children, adolescents and youth are still out of school for multiple reasons relating
to their living conditions, financial constraints and social adversities. Education can play a
transformative role to help them escape poverty, but education policies need to do far more to
improve access and inclusion.While it is very challenging to bring out-of-school youth back into
education, there is also a disquieting slowdown in the pace at which the world’s children and
adolescents are being integrated into national education systems. The global primary out-of-school
rate has remained stubbornly at 9% for eight years in a row. As education and poverty are dynamic
phenomena with strong inter-generational effects, failure to act now jeopardizes the future of
several generations.

4. HOW CAN UNESCO CONTRIBUTE

International organizations have played the main role in putting poverty back on the international
development agenda. Most of them have recognized areas of responsibility and expertise:

• OECD/DAC has been contributing to discussions around setting the International Development
Goals, and will continue to play a role in extending them and monitoring performance.

• The World Bank has strong research and analytic capacity in relation to issues of income
measures of poverty and economic vulnerability.

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• UNDP has in the past played a major role in obtaining recognition of the importance of treating
the non-economic dimensions of poverty. It has now established itself as the principal
United Nations organization dealing with the linkages between poverty and governance.

• A number of agencies specialize in improving the delivery of poverty-reducing programmes:

UNICEF (education and health for children); WHO (Health for All); and IFAD (small-
scale farming). UNESCO can continue to contribute to this global effort by sharpening
the focus on poverty reduction within its existing activities around science and technology,
social sciences, education, culture and communications. Aside from this effort, this
document makes some proposals for UNESCO to develop a distinct poverty-focused
initiative that will:

• Take advantage of UNESCO’s unique capacities and mandate. Cooperate with other United
Nations Agencies and provide expertise that complements their strengths and programmes
already established in the field. Address important issues that are neglected by these other
organizations.

• Build balanced global debate on the issue of development and poverty reduction.

This illustrative initiative addresses a major gap in the current agenda: the lack of attention to the
issue of commitment against poverty on the part of national political authorities in developing
countries. As an illustration for an intersectoral programme, the proposed initiative is titled
“Building National Ownership of the Anti-Poverty Agenda”. The overall objectives are:

To support national governments in maintaining their commitment to poverty reduction.

• To do this in a way that will increase the voice and influence of the socially excluded poor.

• In consequence of the above, to develop a more genuinely international anti-poverty agenda,

that reflects national diversity and the plurality of feasible approaches to poverty reduction.
There are three major components to the strategy behind such an initiative:

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• To help provide greater voice for the socially excluded poor in both national and international
debates about poverty.

• To help develop a sympathetic awareness, primarily within national arenas, of the overall
societal costs of continuing poverty and of the potential societal benefits of rapid poverty
reduction.

• To help build national debates that are both informed by this sympathetic awareness of the
societal costs of poverty and framed increasingly in terms of local understandings about
the character, causes of and solutions to poverty. Why should this difficult and intangible
task of “building national ownership of the anti- poverty agenda” fall to UNESCO?
Because UNESCO has a set of comparative advantages in this field:

• UNESCO’s research and communications capacity - and its relatively limited focus on funding
activities and field programme implementation - gives it a relative strength in an activity
that primarily involves changing attitudes and perceptions.

• This is an area involving difficult and sensitive political and cultural concerns around poverty
(as a problem) and rights (as a potential and underused anti-poverty instrument). UNESCO
has experience of these issues and the credibility, mandate and capacity to engage with
them.

INDIAN CASES LAWS SHOWING SIGNIFICANCE OF EDUCATION

CASE 1

CASE NAME- Unni Krishnan, J.P. & Ors. v. State of Andhra Pradesh & Ors.
Citation- 1993 AIR 217
Significance of the Case:

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The Court in Unni Krishnan expressed its disagreement with the finding in the earlier case of
Mohini Jain v State of Karnataka (http://judis.nic.in/supremecourt/qrydisp.asp?tfnm=12349) 1992
AIR 1858 that the right to education at all levels is guaranteed by the Constitution. In the
subsequent case of M.C. Mehta v State of Tamil Nadu & Ors (1996) 6 SCC 756; AIR 1997 SC
699, the Supreme Court stated that Article 45 had acquired the status of a fundamental right
following the Constitutional Bench's decision in Unni Krishnan.

In addition, the Court said that, in order to treat a right as fundamental right, it is not necessary that
it should be expressly stated as one in Part III of the Constitution: “the provisions of Part III and
Part IV are supplementary and complementary to each other”. The Court rejected that the rights
reflected in the provisions of Part III are superior to the moral claims and aspirations reflected in
the provisions of Part IV.

Summary:

The case involved a challenge by certain private professional educational facilities to the
constitutionality of state laws regulating capitation fees charged by such institutions.

The Supreme Court held that the right to basic education is implied by the fundamental right to
life (Article 21) when read in conjunction with the directive principle on education (Article 41).
The Court held that the parameters of the right must be understood in the context of the Directive
Principles of State Policy, including Article 45 which provides that the state is to endeavour to
provide, within a period of ten years from the commencement of the Constitution, for free and
compulsory education for all children under the age of 14. The Court ruled that there is no
fundamental right to education for a professional degree that flows from Article 21. It held,
however, that the passage of 44 years since the enactment of the Constitution had effectively
converted the non-justiciable right to education of children under 14 into one enforceable under
the law. After reaching the age of fourteen, their right to education is subject to the limits of
economic capacity and development of the state (as per Article 41). Quoting Article 13 of the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Court stated that the state's
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obligation to provide higher education requires it to take steps to the maximum of its available

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resources with a view to achieving progressively the full realization of the right of education by
all appropriate means.

Issue Involved in the case

Constitutional challenge querying whether the “right to life” in Article 21 of the Constitution of
India guarantees a fundamental right to education to citizens of India; role of economic resources
in limiting right to education; interplay between Directive Principles and State Policy in the
Constitution and Fundamental Rights; whether the right to education includes adult professional
education.

Enforcement of the Decision and Outcomes:

The state responded to this declaration nine years later by inserting, through the Ninety-third
amendment to Constitution, Article 21-A, which provides for the fundamental right to education
for children between the ages of six and fourteen. In addition, several States in India have passed
legislation making primary education compulsory. These statutes “have however remained un-
enforced due to various socio- economic and cultural factors as well as administrative and financial
constraints. There is no central legislation making elementary education compulsory.”

CASE 2

Case name- Bandhua Mukti Morcha v. Union of India & Ors.

Citation - (1997) 10 SCC 549

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Significance of the Case:

This case along with other public interest litigation cases on the issue of child labor, and a range of
child labor eradication campaigns have been successful in raising awareness about the issue of
child labor and placing the issue prominently on the government’s agenda. Law and policy
(http://www.ielrc.org/content/a0905.pdf) is moving in the direction of formal abolition of child
labor and different initiatives especially in the area of education are being undertaken towards
eradicating child labor. One effect (http://www.fes.de/ipg/ipg3_2001/artashraf.htm) has been that
the use of child labor in the carpet industry has been reduced. However, millions of children
(http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/02/india-still-struggling-to-combat-child-labour/) still continue to
be exploited in the labor market in India and there is an urgent need for stronger and more effective
protections for the rights of children.

Summary:

This public interest litigation case (PIL) was filed via Article 32 of the Indian Constitution directly
before the Supreme Court of India and petitioned the Court to direct the State of Uttar Pradesh
(UP) to take steps to end child labor. Thereafter a Court-appointed committee reported the
enormity of child exploitation in UP’s carpet industry, finding that many children were kidnapped
from Bihar, that the industry largely employed minor children under 14 years, and that many
experienced physical abuse.

n its judgment, the Court discussed the importance of protecting children’s rights to education,
health, and development in ensuring India’s progress as a democracy. While recognizing that child
labor could not be abolished immediately due to economic necessity, the Court found that
pragmatic steps could be taken to protect and promote the rights of children in the poverty-stricken
and vulnerable populations of Indian society. In support of its conclusion, the Court referred to
various fundamental rights and directive principles of the Indian Constitution including, Article
21 (the right to life and personal liberty), Article 24 (prohibits employment of children younger
than 14 in factories, mines, or other hazardous industries), Article 39 (e) (prohibits forcing citizens
into vocations unsuited for their age or strength), Article 39(f) (describes the State’s duties to
protect children from exploitation and to ensure children the opportunities and facilities to develop

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in a healthy manner), and Article 45 (mandates the State to provide free compulsory education for
all children below 14 years). The Court also noted India’s obligations under the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child to provide
free primary education for all children in the country, and to protect children against economic
exploitation. The measures ordered to abolish child labor set out in an earlier case, M.C. Mehta v.
State of Tamil Nadu & Ors. [[(1996) 6 SCC 756] were referenced by the Court and incorporated
in orders to the States of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The orders included, directing the States to take
steps to frame policies to progressively eliminate the employment of children below the age of 14;
provide compulsory education to all children employed in factories, mining, and other industries;
ensure that the children receive nutrient-rich foods; and administer periodic health check-ups.

Issues involved

The Supreme Court of India, in this public interest litigation case, directed the State of Uttar
Pradesh to eliminate the carpet industry’s use of child labor, issue welfare directives prohibiting
child labor under the age of 14 and provide children access to education and health facilities in an
effort to abolish child labor.

Enforcement of the Decision and Outcomes:

In its judgment, the Court required that periodic reports of progress regarding the implementation
of the decision be submitted to the Registry of the Court. In addition, as regards enforcement, a
supplemental, if not consequential outcome of this case, along with other relevant public interest
litigation cases, was that that National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) in
2006 framed the NCPCR rules constituting the National Child Rights Commission. This
Commission was entrusted with assessing compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the
child and thus by extension monitoring the provision of free primary education for all children in
the country and the protection of children against economic exploitation.

Conclusion
The student researcher can conclude that Education is the strongest weapon to eradicate poverty
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the Supreme Court of India has always tried to protect the interest of the Children by making at
least the primary education compulsory for all the children below 14 years.
UNESCO has a very vital role to play at the international level, importance of education should be
spread through out the world. To eradicate poverty all the people should be provided with the
education. This will help them to learn the basic skills. By basic skills the people will be able to
earn and provide them with basic facility and will help them to eventually get out of the poverty.

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