South African President Zuma met today with UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and announced that South Africa will host a global summit on education during the World Cup this summer. Aaron Mokoena, South Africa’s football captain and 1GOAL Ambassador, who met with President Zuma said “I am delighted that the Government of South Africa had decided to host a summit for education for all children” and Her Majesty Queen Rania (Co-Founder and Global Co-Chair of 1GOAL) congratulated President Zuma and Prime Minister Brown on “their vision and commitment to make global education the greatest goal of the South Africa World Cup 2010.”

This announcement gives real political momentum to the campaign to ensure all children go to school, which would be an incredible legacy of the World Cup.

For more information on the campaign visit the 1GOAL website

Mobile phone operators from around the world have teamed up with ONE’s partner 1GOAL, in support of universal education at this summer’s football World Cup in South Africa.

The operators, who serve more than 1 billion mobile users, will encourage people to sign up to the campaign, demonstrating to global leaders and the UN that universal education is a universal demand.

Making the announcement in Barcelona, Spain at the Mobile World Congress, Her Majesty, Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan, Co-founder and Co-Chair of 1GOAL said:

“I want to thank each and every one of you here today who has joined the 1GOAL team and who’ll reach out to subscribers with a message, an app, or a widget. 1GOAL is about people-power… the largest ever, never-before-done, cause-related campaign of its kind. And I hope that those of you in the mobile ecosystem who haven’t done so, will join up and sign up before our kick-off in April.”

South African football caption Aaron Mokoena, who recently joined ONE in London to talk about the importance of 2010 and the World Cup for Africa, added:

“This will be the year that the mobile fraternity and football joined hands for the greatest of events, and the greatest of causes; Education for all.”

The 1GOAL campaign aims to ensure that the lasting legacy of the football World Cup next year in South Africa is that every child can be learning in school by 2015.

Find out more on the 1GOAL website

Last month, I had a whirlwind tour of the United States to speak about the importance of getting every child in school and how we can achieve universal primary education by creating a Global Fund for Education. I traveled to 5 states, met with over a dozen members of Congress’s offices, and even kicked a soccer ball around with Jessica Alba in Washington, DC – all in order to tout the importance of providing a free basic education for all children. As a former school teacher, eventually the Director of Basic Education in Kenya, and now that I am retired I work full-time to bring educational opportunities to the poorest children in Nairobi – I know the need first-hand.

Part of my story starts in 2003, when Kenya’s newly elected government was able to abolish school fees – approximately $50 a year was the main barrier preventing children from being in school. Within a week, a million children and even some adult learners showed up to enter the classrooms, eager to have the education that they couldn’t previously afford. By the end of the year, 2 million children who had not been able to go to school turned up in the classrooms ready to learn. Kenya now has 91 percent of its children in classrooms, but we are still unable to reach the hardest to reach – that last nine percent. Barriers like orphan-headed households, lack of infrastructure in slums, and lack of clean water and sanitation for girls to be able to attend schools still prohibit reaching all of the children.

Kenya is a success story in many ways – overnight we made primary school free, and with the help of the international community we were able to train and deploy teachers, strengthen school accounting systems and guarantee the right to an education. This story could be duplicated in many countries, if we knew that our international partners like the United States would join our struggle to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of ensuring that children everywhere are able to go to school by 2015. The deadline for this goal is quickly approaching but the United States is in a unique position to lead on this issue: it has the money, the will, and the power to achieve this objective. Kenya’s grandson, President Obama, has promised to create a Global Fund for Education which will fill the education deficit. Ignorance is in fact the greatest expense – because universal education saves lives, it reduces the risk of civil war, malnutrition and HIV/AIDS, and it is well-known that literacy is a prerequisite for economic growth.

But it is up to you, America, to build the political will of your elected officials to bring the gift of knowledge and empowerment to the poorest children of the world. A great way to get involved is to take part in events like the National Day of Action on December 10th. Organizations like the Global Campaign for Education, 1 GOAL, RESULTS, ONE and many other coalition partners are doing everything they can to mobilize citizens across the country to call on their leaders to do their part. This day provides a great opportunity to spread the message that through universal education, we can reduce poverty, save lives, and promote a more stable, secure world. During the Day of Action, thousands of people across the country will call and write to President Obama urging him to provide $2 billion in the 2011 budget to create a Global Fund for Education . Through phone calls, petitions, and media outreach, Americans can send a message to the world that building sustainable solutions to the greatest development challenges of our day is possible through global education. To get involved, go to www.campaignforeducationusa.org.

Today’s children will be tomorrow’s leaders, doctors, scientists, lawyers and innovators and we can’t afford to deny them of their destiny. I am proud to be partnering with the ONE Campaign and the US Chapter of the Global Campaign for Education in their mission to give the more than 75 million children worldwide the opportunities and tool they need to succeed in today’s global environment by sending them to school and I hope you will join me.

© 2009 Foreign & Commonwealth Office

UK Foreign Office Minister Glenys Kinnock has signed up to the 1GOAL campaign during her recent visit to South Africa.

Speaking at Winnie Ngwekazi Primary School in Soweto, she said “Many millions more children are in school now because governments have focussed on that as a priority, but it is still totally unacceptable that 75 million children are not receiving any kind of primary education.”

She also said that she will discuss 1GOAL when Commonwealth leaders meet next month in Trinidad & Tobago.

The 1GOAL campaign, a partner to ONE, aims to ensure that the lasting legacy of the football World Cup next year in South Africa is that every child can be learning in school by 2015.

Watch this interview with Glenys Kinnock discussing 1GOAL:

You can read more about 1GOAL here, and their report of the meetings here.

She also discusses 1GOAL in detail (which we’ve covered here) as well as the role of social networking in creating change.

Sec. Clinton talked about the role education plays in lifting families and countries out of poverty and also said that the U.S. “is committed to working with partners of all kinds- other governments, businesses, academics, activists, parents and teachers- everyone who wants to help us expand access to education for children everywhere.”

As many of you might remember from ONE Vote ’08, global education was one of President Obama’s strongest development commitments during the campaign, with a promise that if he became president the U.S. would contribute $2 billion to a Global Education Fund.

Hopefully this message from Sec. Clinton for 1GOAL is a sign that the Administration is ready to get serious about a making strong, new investment in global education. As Senator, Sec. Clinton championed global education with the bi-partisan Education for All Act, which would have scaled up U.S. development assistance to its fair share of the amount needed to send every child to school around the world. It’s great news that Sec. Clinton has lent her voice to 1GOAL and hopefully a sign that with her leadership, the Administration will get to work on turning President Obama’s campaign pledge into a reality for millions of children around the world.

PS– Check out photos from the global launch here.

Last week ONE was at the Labour Party conference, where we held an event to launch our ONE Vote campaign as well as celebrating 1GOAL and the fact that the football World Cup will be held in Africa for the first time ever next year.

We were lucky to be joined by the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, who spoke about the issues. Two footballers also spoke, South African captain Aaron Mokoena and John Utaka, who plays for Nigeria and Portsmouth. They were followed by Glenys Kinnock, Minister for Europe, and Douglas Alexander, the Minister for International Development.

The ONE team is now in Manchester for the Conservative Party Conference, which started earlier this week, and we’re getting ready to host a reception this evening. We’ll be blogging more about the event soon so please stay tuned.

-David Cole

Note: Since the video is on auto-play click “more” link below to check it out:

According to 1GOAL’s website,

World leaders from seven countries will join UN Secretary General, FIFA President Sepp Blatter and leading football players from around the world to announce support for the 2010 FIFA World Cup 1GOAL: Education for All campaign.

Hosted by football legend Gary Lineker, political figures and footballers from around the world will convene via satellite to sign up to 1GOAL – helping to ensure that the 2010 FIFA World Cup will leave a lasting legacy of education for all.

Be sure to check out tomorrow’s live webcast here.