We the delegates of the World Literacy Summit, held April 2023 in Oxford, gathered to create sustainable and long-term solutions to the global literacy crisis affecting hundreds of millions of children and adults. Being that this is the declaration for the World Literacy Summit; the delegates find it self-evident that education is a basic global human right and that no group should be deemed unworthy of the opportunity to learn. We believe literacy is a foundational necessity for economic, social, physical, spiritual, political and cultural wellbeing. The World Literacy Summit delegates define literacy as having ability in reading, writing, numeracy, visual communication, digital technology, critical thinking, speaking and listening. We reaffirm our commitment to achieving literacy through quality education as a means of breaking the cycle of poverty and building the economic and social capital of all countries.

We call for quality of education as a global development priority. We must come together with the broader education sector to embrace efforts to improve learning for young people at all stages of their lives. In order to raise the profile of literacy and learning on the international agenda.

In this call to action, the delegates pledge to be forward looking, active, innovative and focused in our commitments to world literacy as a global priority. We pledge to work in partnership to advocate for the under-represented, track progress and identify best practices, scale up successful programs, strengthen the evidence base and data available, and ultimately improve the literacy and lives of millions of children and adults.