In October 1999, development organisations and teachers' unions from around the world joined forces to launch the Global Campaign for Education, aimed at making the grassroots voice more effective at an international level. We are calling on people all around the world to support the call for free, quality basic education.

The Global Campaign for Education works to hold governments accountable to their promises. We do this by mobilising public opinion, and lobbying governments and international institutions to make sure they keep the promises they make in international education summits.

We want developing country governments to:

• increase their own investment in basic education, meeting half the estimated US$10bn annual cost of making primary education free and universal by 2015
• equalise the enrolment of girls and boys 
• upgrade the quality of education in the most disadvantaged communities 
• abolish fees and charges that keep children out of government primary schools, so that 'free' basic education becomes a reality
• involve poor people and groups, representing them in all levels of education governance and planning

We are asking international agencies, G8 leaders and rich developed nations to:

• mobilise at least US$4.5bn per year in additional aid for basic education - half the estimated cost of achieving the 2015 target for universal primary education
• stop promoting 'cost recovery' and privatisation of public education, and encourage governments to remove fees by covering any resource gaps they subsequently face
• recognise and support the role of civil society in sustainable education reform, and invest in building civil society's capacity to influence policy
• implement a global initiative to mobilise and coordinate the additional funding needed to ensure that no country with a sound plan will fail for lack of resources