Consensus in diversity
Despite the diverse national and cultural backgrounds of the contributors, there were several basic points of consensus. Firstly, the majority acknowledged the impor tance of establishing some kind of global goals for development and education. Equally there was general recognition that a significant number of countries would neither achieve the MDGs nor those of EFA and that progress towards the CONFINTEA recommendations was slow and patchy. Thirdly, there was general agreement that in order to advance on current pro-
posals for the post 2015 development and education agenda we will not, in Paul Bélanger’s words, “succeed […] without a large citizens’ movement asserting what is missing to make this world agenda an efficient guide for global and national development efforts to be taken during the next 15 years.” Participation is the order of the day.