NEW YORK, 15 March 2010 – The United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative welcomes Cisco, a company long committed to promoting education and innovations in learning, as the newest member of its Global Advisory Committee.
As the first private sector member of the committee, Cisco reaffirms its resolve to play an active role in the collective effort to promote girls’ education and gender equality around the world.
UNGEI has made major strides since it was launched in 2000 to help ensure that both girls and boys have equal access to education. However, much still remains to be done with more than 72 million children around the world still out of school, the majority of them girls.
“Cisco’s membership is a major milestone for the UNGEI partnership, as it will strengthen our mutual goal to contribute to transforming societies where gender equality becomes a reality,” said May Rihani, UNGEI GAC co-chair.
Cisco’s commitment to education dates back more than a decade with the establishment of one of the largest e-learning programs in the world, the Cisco® Networking Academy®. The company has since expanded and enhanced its efforts through a variety of education-focused initiatives in regions around the world.
“We believe that education provides one of strongest foundations for lasting social and economic progress,” said Amy Christen, vice president of Corporate Affairs, Cisco. “By applying effective 21st-century educational techniques in schools and other institutions, communities worldwide can prepare students, especially girls and young women, to enter the local talent pool and contribute the skills needed to bolster economic growth.”
Education and gender equality are the catalysts that produce the entrepreneurs, technologists, thinkers, knowledge workers, teachers, and leaders who collectively make it possible for economies, societies and individuals to prosper. UNGEI and Cisco together will aim to forge ahead with its global effort to ensure free, high-quality education for all girls and boys, especially in developing regions and underserved communities, where it is needed most.
