The Ford Foundation says the goals include strengthening democratic values, reducing poverty and increasing international cooperation.
VOA: special.2009.09.24
Mr. Shigeru Aoyagi, UNESCO Kabul Director, Ms. Catherine Mbengue, UNICEF Representative in Afghanistan and Mr. Michael Slingsby, Country Representative for UN Habitat, attended a joint press conference today in Kabul to highlight the importance of literacy as the fundamental human right and the foundation for a democratic society.
It rankles a bit to hear such a marvellous explanation of the forces that created the mid-Atlantic rift that bisects Iceland on the Thingvellir plain near Reykjavik, but no hint that Europe's first parliament, the foundation of one of the most prosperous and democratic societies on earth, met just over a thousand years ago on that exact same spot.
He is wise to do so, says Joe Garcia, a prominent Democratic Party activist and director of the Cuban-American National Foundation, an exile group that was once hardline but now backs greater engagement with Cuba.