2024年2月22日发(作者：神舟笔记本电脑售后服务)

英语听力材料UNESCO Literacy1 Campaign

This is the VOA Special English Development Report.

The United Nations has launched a new ten-year campaign to increase

literacy around the world. People with literacy skills can read and

write. People who are not able to read and write are considered

illiterate.

There are currently about eight-hundred-sixty-million illiterate

people around the world. That is one out of every five adults over

age fifteen. Two-thirds of them are women. In addition, more than

one-hundred-thirteen-million children do not attend school and are

failing to learn to read and write.

The main message of the U-N campaign is “Literacy as Freedom.“ Deputy U-N Secretary General Louise Frechette launched the

campaign in February during a special ceremony at U-N headquarters

in New York City.

She said that literacy is needed for a healthy, fair and successful

world. She also noted the importance of education for girls and

women to improve conditions in developing countries. That is why

the first two years of the campaign will be aimed at improving the

literacy of females.

The U-N Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization will

supervise the campaign. UNESCO head Koichiro Matsuura says the push

for worldwide literacy is linked to human rights. He believes that

literacy can help improve development and economic growth in poor

countries.

The wife of President Bush, Laura Bush, was also present to launch

the campaign. She said the United States plans to invest more than

three-hundred-million dollars to support education in schools

around the world. An estimated2 one-hundred-million dollars of that

money will be spent in Africa. About seventy percent of the world”s illiterate adults live in South and West Asia, Africa, and the

Middle East.

The United Nations hopes the new campaign will help increase world

literacy by fifty percent by the year two-thousand-fifteen. This

is just one of six goals set during a world education meeting in

Dakar, Senegal in two-thousand. However, officials say

seventy-nine countries are currently at risk of not meeting the

literacy goal.

The U-N says the literacy campaign will be a huge test. But it will

also be an important chance to improve the lives of millions of

people around the world.

This VOA Special English Development Report was written by Jill Moss.

1. literacy [5lIt[r[sI] n. 有文化，有教养，有读写力量

2. estimated [5estImeIt] v/n.. 估量，估算