Books for Every Child: A Global Pledge

Through the Global Book Alliance, the international community has committed to achieving universal literacy for the world’s learners by 2030. To reach this goal, we must ensure that learners have access to quality books. 

More than 617 million children and youth are not reaching minimum proficiency in reading. Children cannot learn if they cannot read, and they cannot read if they do not have books in languages that they understand. This generation’s youth deserve the opportunity to gain the skills they need—including reading—to positively shape their families, communities, and societies. Despite their importance, books are absent, in short supply, or are otherwise inaccessible for millions of children—we call this the book gap. 

Ensuring all children can read by 2030 will require a commitment by the international community to transform and strengthen the entire book chain, including: forecasting and planning, title development, publishing and printing, procurement and purchasing, distribution management, and active use. 

The GBA has four objectives to achieve by 2030:

1. Increase the availability of quality children’s books in local languages and in print and digital formats;

2. Increase access to quality children’s books at school, in the community, and at home;

3. Improve use of books by children, teachers, parents, and caregivers;

4. Improve knowledge and capacity of the global community and country-level stakeholders to strengthen the book supply chains and close the global book gap. 

Join us in ensuring that all children have the books they need to learn to read and read to learn.

Books for Every Child: A Global Pledge

My organization pledges to become a partner of the Global Book Alliance. 

We pledge to support the GBA’s vision for a world in which all children achieve literacy and have access to quality books in a language that they understand. 

We pledge to uphold the GBA’s mission and work to transform the lives of millions of children by working with partners to identify, promote, and support innovations, best practices, and policies that will change the way books are created, procured, and provided. 

We pledge to uphold the GBA’s objectives, to the best of our ability, through our policies, programs, activities, and practices. 

We pledge to increase and improve our own efforts to ensure all children have books they need to learn how to read. 

Together, we can achieve a world in which all children have access to quality books that they can use to learn to read, read to learn, and develop a love of reading.