Millenium +5 Years Summit, September 14-16, 2005

	Ad Melkert, Dutch Executive Director, The World Bank; David, 15, from Peru; and Kailash Satyarthi, Chair, Global March against Child Labor
	Senator Christovam Buarque, Brazil, initiator of Bolsa Escola Program
	Ad Melkert, Dutch Executive Director, The World Bank
	Senator Christovam Buarque, Brazil, and Kerry Kennedy
	David, 15, and Rebecca, 16, from Peru; Kailash Satyarthi, Chair, Global March against Child Labor; and Suman, 12, from India

The Millennium Summit in New York in September 2005 marked a milestone in the MDG initiative: a third of the way towards 2015, five years gone and ten remaining. In assessing how far the international community had come and what is still required to implement the 2000 Millennium Declaration (including the MDGs), world leaders resolved "to adopt, by 2006, and implement comprehensive national development strategies to achieve the internationally agreed development goals and objectives, including the Millennium Development Goals".

The Summit reaffirmed its "commitment to support developing country efforts to ensure that all children have access to and complete free and compulsory primary education of good quality, to eliminate gender inequality and imbalance and to renew efforts to improve girls' education". Specifically, world leaders pledged to continue "to support the efforts of developing countries in the implementation of the Education for All initiative, including with enhanced resources of all types through the Education for All Fast-Track Initiative (FTI) in support of country-led national education plans".

It is vitally important that the elimination of child labor is mainstreamed into this process. If EFA is to have any meaning for the more than 245 million child laborers around the world, it must truly be for all and must link into global efforts to eliminate child labor. This commitment is reinforced within the Summit resolution which goes on to emphasize that measures to be taken to ensure decent work for all "should also encompass the elimination of the worst forms of child labor".

Round Table on Child Labor, Education and the MDGs, NY, September 13, 2005
The Round Table on Child Labor, Education and the MDGs in NY on September 13 reminded world leaders convened at the Millennium Summit in NY on the 14th that the elimination of child labor is critical and central to the successful realization of the MDGs, particularly universal primary education. The Round Table was co-hosted by the International Center on Child Labor and Education, Global Campaign for Education, Global March Against Child Labor, and Child Labor Coalition.

The event was on the linkages between child labor and the MDGs. The elimination of child labor is an essential pre-requisite to the realization of at least four of the MDGs and, therefore, should be embedded into the MDGs.

For example, extreme poverty cannot be eradicated (goal 1) as long as 246 million children are working instead of going to school, thereby perpetuating poverty. The economic exploitation of children pushes adults out of work and perpetuates inter-generational poverty. As child laborers are unable to attend schools, it is impossible for them to acquire the skills necessary to build knowledge capital.

Similarly, only when Governments include specific strategies to redirect 246 million child laborers to schools in their national education plans will the world achieve universal primary education (goal 2).

Gender equality and the empowerment of women (goal 3) will never be achieved as long as millions of girls are out of school and the majority of them are child domestic workers. We have already missed the target of eliminating gender disparity in primary and secondary education by 2005.

The goal of combating HIV/AIDS (goal 6) is also critically linked child labor and education. The death of parents from HIV/AIDS creates a new generation of child-headed households. According Oxfam's 2004, 7 million cases of HIV/AIDS could be avoided in the coming decade if all children had access to education.

Three children rescued from the worst forms of child labor in India and Peru participated in the Round Table with other leaders, including:

• Kailash Satyarthi, Chair, Global March Against Child Labor, and President, Global Campaign for Education
• The Honorable Senator Cristovam Buarque, former Minister of Education under the Lula Government, Brazil, and Founder of the famous Bolsa Escola Program
• Ad Melkert, former Netherlands Minister of Social Affairs, Labor and Employment, and current Executive Director for the Netherlands, The World Bank
• Lee Sweptson, Head of the ILO Human Rights Programme, and Representative of ILO-IPEC
• Raj Shekharan, Regional Representative of International Confederation of Free Trade Unions.
• Kerry Kennedy