Academy for Educational Development

Washington, D.C., April 14, 2005 — AED President Stephen F. Moseley asked the House Foreign Operations Subcommittee today to double funding for Basic Education to $800 million for fiscal 2006. Moseley spoke as Chairman of the Board of the Basic Education Coalition, a group of 19 humanitarian and development institutions working to ensure that the world’s children receive a quality basic education.

AED’s president highlighted the importance of education to U.S. foreign policy and national security, as well as to international development.

“No country has achieved sustained economic growth without having first attained near universal primary education. Former developing countries that have prospered economically and graduated from U.S. foreign aid programs—Korea, Thailand, Botswana and Brazil, for example—are those where education assistance… helped stimulate and leverage their successful education development from the 1960s to the1980s,” Moseley noted.

In his testimony, Moseley cited healthier families, poverty alleviation, greater civic participation and economic productivity, and HIV/AIDS prevention as some of the greatest benefits of investing in the education of the world’s children.

Despite those benefits, he noted that 104 million children worldwide are still not in school and will remain trapped in a cycle of poverty, which has significant national security implications for the American people.

“While education does not prevent terrorism, a lack of education clearly contributes to poverty and disillusionment, which provides fertile ground for those who look for sympathy or recruits for their radical causes,” Moseley said.

Pointing to a worldwide shortfall of an estimated $5.6 billion a year to provide universal basic education, Moseley called on the Subcommittee to meet the U.S. proportionate share and increase basic education funding to $800 million for fiscal year 2006.

“In developing countries, our nation can, with this requested increase in foreign aid funding for education, help meet our international commitment to the goal of Education for All,” Moseley said.

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