Affirmative action public policies and the effectiveness of education as a right. By Renato Ferreira 1. Racism and other forms of discrimination have formed as an ideological pillar in the history of humanity and the effects of the legacy of discrimination unequivocally corroborate the enormous inequities and social inequalities around the world. 2. On the other hand, the lack of will and the deep lethargy of the rulers, has prevented the creation of public policies that could have helped to construct democracies, reducing injustices that have been perpetuated historically. 3. Social evils are not mere abstractions, they are social facts not significantly reduced by the governments that have led the leadership of modern democracies, in which the International Treaties of Human Rights are only sterile and ineffective recommendations, since they do not keep any tune with what is experienced by most marginalized populations. 4. Due to this, countries have a historical legacy of discrimination one that still holds our societies ingrained. Their overcoming requires political will to promote effective measures to eradicate discrimination through public policies that have the promotion of human rights in their hearts. 5. The lack of public policies aimed at the promotion of historically excluded peoples has crystallized enormous ethnic disparities, causing the overcoming of racial inequality to be one of the main challenges of humanity at the beginning of this century. 6. The overcoming of the wounds of the oppression imposed by colonialism and reinforced by neoliberalism, is closely linked with the imperative need to promote historical reparation that remains in debt to people traditionally discriminated against. 7. We must overcome discrimination, seeking more economic, political, social and cultural integration with a view to the formation of an international community of nations committed to the development of education, not as a commodity but as a right. This requires joint participation in favour of citizenship and greater political participation, especially in the poorest nations in the international arena. 8. As reported by the United Nations Development Program, at the beginning of this 21st century, the lack of education still impedes human development in various countries. Even with the progress made in the last decade, with regard to public policies and the incorporation of some of the content of the Durban Declaration into the discourse of the various government authorities, statistics show that we are far from achieving the objectives of this conference.