By devoting this 11th summit to the theme of information technologies in education, the Francophonie wants to speed up movement towards one of the most important of the millennium goals: education for all. Democratising access to the TIC (Information and Communication Technologies) and reducing the numerical fracture between north and south are concerted efforts in this direction.
The summit’s final objective is to participate fully in achieving the strategic objective of the Lisbon Agenda: to make the European Union "the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world". Today, the international Organization of Francophonie (OIF) accounts for 21 European members or observers, including 11 members of the EU.
In the next years, the OIF will be increasingly making its presence felt in the EU, where its member states will be soon 13 out of 27. This evolution seems logical when one takes into account the fact that a large proportion of the world’s government development aid (APD) goes to the least-advanced countries, of which around half are members of the OIF.
The OIF aims to ensure that French retains its place as an EU working language, alongside English and German. It as also adopted a plan for the revival of French in European institutions. Thus, in Romania, 1,300 specialised frameworks receive French courses financed by the OIF.
Because of its historical attachment to the French language, Romania also wishes to become an active voice of the Francophonie within the EU. Today, one Romanian in five understands French.
