Queen rania discusses UNESCO’s new global initiative

Her Majesty Queen Rania on Wednesday met with UNESCO Director in New York General Irina Bokova to discuss the organisation’s new global partnership for girls’ and women’s education. Launched in May, “Better Life, Better Future” focuses on reaching illiterate or semi-literate adolescent girls and scaling up women’s literacy programmes through strong partnerships with corporate giants such as Nokia, Procter and Gamble, GEMS education, Microsoft, Apple and the Packard Foundation. Meanwhile, on Tuesday Her Majesty attended the “Every Woman, Every Child” reception hosted by the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) health alliance. Launched by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon during the UN MDG summit in September 2010, “Every Woman, Every Child” aims to save the lives of 16 million women and children by 2015. Queen Rania also attended a meeting called for by Gordon Brown and the Brookings Institution, for “A Global Business Coalition for Education”. The meeting of interested CEOs aims to make the case for a Global Coalition for Education and to discuss how it should function. The coalition will be based on the successful model created by the Global Business Coalition for Health (GBC Health). Launched in 2001, GBC Health has grown from 17 to nearly 200 corporate members.