ISTAMBUL - Fourteen African Finance and Education Ministers have written to governments of leading donor countries appealing for financial support to send 20 million children to primary schools by the end of next year. 

In their appeal to donor governments, the Ministers are requesting a special high-level ministerial round-table bringing together developing and high-income countries to discuss funding shortages in the education sector.

The Ministers are suggesting the round-table be held at the sidelines of the up-coming World Bank’s annual meeting in Istanbul.  

The Ministers are from Rwanda, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Malawi, Mozambique, Senegal, and Uganda among others.

According to the Ministers, the prevailing support programme faces an immediate funding shortfall of US$ 1.2bn through to the end of 2010, and will need significantly more over the coming years to educate all school-age children in Africa.   

"We appeal to you, as leading Ministers in donor countries, to grasp this historic opportunity to move our African countries closer to our 2015 Millennium Development Goals, and to give our boys and girls their ultimate passport to escape poverty and embrace their God-given potential,” the Ministers wrote in a letter released late Thursday.  

"This global partnership has already achieved impressive results, and with your timely and generous help, it will achieve even more -- and help millions of new school students to stretch their minds to achieve a better life than their parents.”

Rwanda is represented at the meeting by Finance Minister, James Musoni and Dr Charles Murigande, the Minister of Education.

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