Jordan Queen Rania to attend aid forum

By Lee Tae-hoon

Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan will deliver a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF-4) to be held in Busan from Tuesday through Thursday.

The wife of King Abdullah II is well-known as a staunch defender of children’s welfare. She has served as UNICEF's first Eminent Advocate for Children and is honorary global chair of the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI) in recognition of her efforts to promote access, quality, and innovation in education both in Jordan and across the world.

Around 2,000 delegates are expected to attend the global aid conference aimed at improving the handling of global aid funds and discussing ways to meet the Millennium Development Goals, a U.N. global action plan to cut the proportion of people living in absolute poverty in half by 2015.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria will attend the three-day international conference.

On Wednesday, Queen Rania will visit the Busan National University of Education (BNUE) to meet with its President Kim Sang-yong and tour an elementary school run by the BNUE during which she plans to visit classrooms and observe classes.

Since becoming the queen of Jordan in 1999, the 41-year-old has dedicated herself to educating and providing opportunities to adolescent girls who she says “have the power to turn our world around.”

Queen Rania, a mother of four children and an international fashion icon, has actively supported the UNICEF’s Education for All campaign, the In My Name Campaign, the Global Campaign for Education (GCE), and the Global Partnership for Education.

In 2009, she was named co-founder and global co-chair of 1GOAL, a campaign to promote global education in partnership with FIFA, the South Africa 2010 World Cup, and GCE.

She is also a board member of both the World Economic Forum and the United Nations Foundation as a supporter of their Girl Up campaign.

In Jordan, Queen Rania launched the Madrasati (My School) initiative in April 2008, a public-private partnership to renovate 500 needy public schools.

She established Jordan’s first interactive Children’s Museum in May 2007 and launched the Queen Rania Teachers’ Academy in June 2009.