Sector group on education workshop on school facility rehabilitation opening addressDistinguished Representative of the Ministry of Education, Distinguished guests, For me, this workshop is an excellent occasion to become more closely acquainted with the members of the Sector Group on Education and the main actors in this field in Côte d’Ivoire. In recent years, the Sector Group on Education has made a remarkable contribution to maintaining the educational offer in Côte d’Ivoire while working together with the Ministry of Education, all the more so as the conditions for implementation of this enterprise have not always been easy. Major initiatives include the organization of two school examination sessions in the CNO zones and three Back To School Campaigns in 2005, 2006 and 2007, which were made possible thanks to EU funding. These results are the reward for teamwork, which must be sustained, even if thanks to the current context we are seeing positive developments. In effect, the Reform of Humanitarian Action, which sanctions the “cluster approach”, obliges us to pursue teamwork. This approach to sectoral responsibility in reinforcing humanitarian action puts the onus on sectoral groups to operate both in the context of acute humanitarian crises and during the early phases of recovery and reconstruction. This is to say that this workshop on school rehabilitation could not be more timely, especially as Côte d’Ivoire has just been included as a “Cluster Country”, that is a country in which humanitarian action will forthwith be organized according to sectoral responsibility. Organization of a workshop on school facility rehabilitation makes perfect sense in the current context of Côte d’Ivoire. It is essential to rebuild schools to give children access to their right to education, but also as a catalyst for the country’s peace and reconstruction process. Rehabilitation of school facilities is thus part of the reconstruction of the school system. And as such it’s reference point, by which we must set our goals, is the national vision of the school system. Ladies and Gentlemen, This is why the active involvement of the Ministry of Education in this workshop is encouraging. However, given the scope of the task, it will be necessary, essential even, that the partners engaged in this effort seek out their synergies and complementarities. And for complementarity to translate both into conceptualization and implementation, we must all be willing to share our approaches and our current and future plans. This will allow us to extend rehabilitation beyond the classroom and to enhance the project with other partners’ approaches by integrating sanitation, provision of school furniture or rehabilitation of teachers’ lodgings. The goal is to restore and improve our children’s learning environment. This is one of the dimensions of the Child-Friendly, Girl-Friendly School model, which UNICEF has developed and implemented in several countries. From this perspective, the result we aim to achieve is strategic. In fact, while we all appreciate the need to develop rehabilitation activities in our respective work plans, our efforts will only make sense if they harmonize with the vision and the plans of the Ministry of Education. At the risk of repeating myself, synergy is the motto of this workshop. In an area where expertise, resources and strategic orientation of actors are varied and not always equal, as well as segmented interventions can actually lack impact and worse, isolated initiatives lead to failure. Convinced that this is true, UNICEF, in its role as leading agency of the “Education Cluster”, has willingly brought its technical and financial support to this workshop. On this occasion, I can assure you that in its role as “last resort agency” for the “Education Cluster”, UNICEF remains prepared to support the Sector Group on Education whenever this is necessary for the respect and enforcement of children’s right to education. Ladies and Gentlemen, Thank you for your attention.
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