Speech by Princess Laurentien at the 7th Forum of the World Alliance of Cities Against Poverty (WACAP)

Speech | 24-02-2010

(Before Princess Laurentien started her speech a 1-minute video was shown of "Ruud", a homeless man who has learned to read and write in middle age.)

So Ruud went from being homeless to being the proud owner of a bicycle store…. His own courage and determination brought him there. And learning to read and write broke the negative cycle he was in. Ruud's life story is one of the many faces and voices of the issues we´re discussing….

People such as Ruud have taught me that literacy is about every aspect of people's lives: about overcoming their shame and gaining self-esteem, about finding and maintaining a job, being productive, raising children, living healthily and yes, happily. Being able to read and write enables us to know the law, understand our rights and obligations as citizens. It is about having equal chances to a fulfilling future. So investing in literacy is investing in someone's self-confidence and self-esteem - which is crucial for getting ahead in life. Illiteracy is much more than a lack of skills, the way that poverty is about much more than a lack of income. Both are about social deprivation, about feeling isolated and excluded and feeling powerless about shaping one's life.

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

I am truly delighted to be here with you. I would like to thank UNDP and you, Mr Aboutaleb, for inviting me to this prestigious event. It is wonderful to see so many representatives from municipalities - and it is particularly heartening to have M. Jean-Yves Jason Muscadin, Mayor of Port-au-Prince, in our midst. It is a great opportunity to meet so many distinguished experts from a range of disciplines. And I must admit, preparing for today was an enjoyable intellectual challenge, as there are so many ways of looking at the link between poverty and illiteracy. It is easy to get carried away - I'm sure you know the feeling… Since I fully appreciate that you're much more knowledgeable about all of these issues, I'd like to simply share some personal observations with you - having worked on literacy issues in the Netherlands for nearly a decade and more recently also internationally as Unesco's Special Envoy on Literacy for Development. Two main points:

1. Illiteracy is a global problem of great urgency, affecting developed and developing nations alike.
2. Illiteracy must especially be tackled at local level, whereby the interest of those affected, not simply predetermined policy "boxes", should guide our approach.

There is no silver bullet in eradicating either illiteracy or poverty, but there are lessons learned that will hopefully contribute to real solutions.

First, illiteracy is a global problem.

Many of the traditional geographic divides in this world are no longer valid. Issues transcend boundaries. Climate change is an obvious one. But also take the role of knowledge and digital information and communication. They rule our systems, our decisions, our interaction. North, south, east, west… people's success in their societies is largely defined by their ability to absorb, grasp and actively use information independently. Written information rules our lives as consumers, voters, employees, patients….
Reading, writing and numeracy skills have thus become a prerequisite to function fully and independently. And this individual situation translates to society as a whole - how can we achieve our ambitions on competitiveness, healthy living, sustainability, social inclusion and active citizenship when large proportions of the population lack the necessary skills to contribute to these ambitions?

Let´s turn to the numbers for a moment… they are shocking and speak for themselves: 776 million people across the world are illiterate. 75 million children don´t have access to education. I realize that the challenges of illiteracy play out differently in different countries. But illiteracy, like poverty, is not an issue that only affects countries in development, as is still too often believed. In Europe, an average of 12 percent of adults are functionally illiterate and 80 million people are at risk of poverty. In the Netherlands, 1.5 million adults are functionally illiterate - 1 million of whom are born and bred in the Netherlands. And 25 percent of our children leave primary school being two years behind in reading and writing. What does that mean for their future in a society in which written information and communication play such a crucial role?

I know from experience here in the Netherlands how hard it is for a developed society to admit that staggering numbers of people cannot read and write. Countries are ashamed to admit to failures not only of educational systems, but also of informal societal structures such as the family and communities. These structures are apparently not able to detect illiteracy or stimulate children to learn how to read and write.

If we want to tackle illiteracy across the globe as a route to tackle poverty, countries traditionally labeled as 'developed' must also face the uncomfortable reality about serious shortcomings in their national levels of literacy. In this part of the world, the problem may not be access to education. But we are faced with a decreasing number and a debate about the quality of our teachers, with a lack of reading and writing abilities of large numbers of children, employees lacking the necessary literacy skills to handle production processes when they become more computerized and citizens making the wrong health decisions due to their limited literacy skills. When I speak about literacy issues with representatives from governments, business and civil society across the globe - from Nigeria to France, from India to the US and from Brazil to the Netherlands, it strikes me time and time again how similar some of the debates are. In our traditionally so-called developed nations, it would probably serve us better to be humble about our own literacy levels and about our own risks of marginalizing great numbers of people. A sense of humility will help us to address the issue structurally and may inspire us to develop the mindset needed to tackle some of the issues head on.

People should be at the heart of our thinking

This brings me to my second point. International, national and regional players of course have an important role in awareness-raising, priority-setting and funding. But solutions on illiteracy issues are best developed and implemented at local level, close to people themselves.

What we call issues, are in fact conditions and situations affecting someone's life / someone like Ruud whom you saw in the short clip at the beginning. I know that the global problems we´re talking about are matters of your daily concern. They are about children that come to school without breakfast, the uninsured in your hospitals, the homeless in your streets, and the families at your job centers looking for work.

They all constantly come into contact with local authorities, schools, businesses or aid agencies…. We should view them as opportunities to help improve skills, address their financial issues, promote healthy living and stimulate active citizenship. It is up to us to connect the dots and let go of sometimes artificial divides of policy areas. By putting people at the centre of our thinking and acting smartly across policy areas, we may increase our chances to truly tackling a problem. Looking at it this way, issues stop competing with each other as they all become part of the same 'chain'.

This European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion is promising from this people-centric perspective. It aims to "give a voice to the concerns of people who have to live with poverty and social exclusion", wants to "challenge stereotypes and collective perceptions of poverty" and is a "call to tackle the causes of poverty head-on". I so hope that we put this commendable perspective into practice!

A lot of people with financial problems lack the necessary basic skills they actually need to function and get out of their problems, let alone get ahead. Stimulating people to improve their skills is often a crucial step to improve their condition and thus the first step to build a more inclusive society. And literacy lies at the heart of it.

This is an important gathering that I am delighted to be part of. But I must admit that I cannot help thinking: when will we have the last conference of this kind? What would be the one thing we all know should be changed to make real progress? In response, you will rightly tell me that it´s not as simple as that…. You will no doubt tell me that issues are complex and that solutions are not so easy to be found. You´re right - but we must make progress. And assuming that we want to change something, we should dare to admit that change cannot happen with the same mindset as the one that helped create what we wish to change…

Don´t you feel that we´re at a crossroads in time, shaped by the global financial crisis, the state of play of our environment and our scarce resources? These challenges are of such magnitude that we are obviously overwhelmed by them. But we can also use them as opportunities to affect a change in mindset. What we do know, is that we need each other to tackling these issues. Also, when it comes to literacy and education more generally, for instance, in many instances we don't need to reinvent the wheel. We need to connect and share what we already know and in doing so, reach out to new and seemingly unexpected players. And let´s make sure that we don´t spend too much time preaching to the converted....

I conclude….

Over the next few days, you will develop a "Rotterdam Call to Action". Knowing the spirit of this city, I´m convinced it will be action-oriented and ambitious. But at least as important as the commitments themselves is a robust agreement on how to implement what you agreed to and how to check that you actually did. My humble advice is to stick to what you agreed to before you move on to something else. Even when something is urgent, patience is a virtue. And we should certainly try for issues to remain priorities, regardless the political contexts.

As we all know, there is no silver bullet in tackling complex issues such as poverty, social exclusion or illiteracy… Every one of us working in different contexts, face different as well as similar challenges. Our individual and collective success will be defined by admitting to shortcomings, putting into practice what we know, celebrate successes, build on them and replicate them elsewhere. The ultimate aim is of course to scale up the impact of our actions. We are individually and collectively responsible and let us not forget that there´s no leadership without learning…

I wish you every success in your important work. Thank you.