A/HRC/4/32/Add.3 page 18 resources; the lack of access to and distribution of social services; ineffective development programmes; and the lack of basic infrastructure and marketing opportunities. The reactivation of the Kenyan Meat Commission has been welcomed by pastoralist communities, who also underlined that it should be made functional in all pastoralist areas. 68. Both the Economic Recovery Strategy and the Poverty Reduction Strategy include specific lines of action to improve equality and reduce poverty in ASAL areas that have a direct bearing on indigenous communities. Government development efforts in these areas are now focused on the ASAL Management Project, financed by the World Bank, which includes a community-based drought early warning system and support for development initiatives at the local level. The project has played a major role in the formulation of the Government’s draft ASAL policy, which sets out a comprehensive plan to support pastoralism in these areas through water provision, grazing, rangeland management, animal health and marketing. The policy is, however, still subject to adoption by the Parliament. 69. To implement the Millennium Development Goals, to which it has subscribed, Kenya has launched the Free Universal Primary Education programme. The authorities recognize, however, that the programme has not yet reached all school-age children, especially in the geographically isolated arid and semi-arid lands, given their specific educational needs. Due to disproportionate poverty, families struggle to provide their children with school uniforms, transportation and school supplies. In some areas, children have to walk many kilometres every day to reach a school. Access to education in pastoralist areas is a serious human rights issue, as reflected in low literacy rates. An estimated 1.7 million children remain out of school, the majority of them living in marginalized pastoralist communities. The literacy level for Maasai in Kajiado and Somali in Mandera is only 3 per cent compared with a national average of 79.3 per cent. According to the Human Development Report, enrolment rates in North Eastern Province were especially low: only 9.8 per cent for primary school and 4.8 per cent for secondary school. 70. To face the difficulties of providing primary school education to semi-nomadic pastoralist families, some attempts have been made to establish boarding schools and mobile schools that accompany the nomadic families. Both initiatives have their problems. When children attend boarding schools, they cannot help their families with herding the livestock and other chores. Thus families are reluctant to send their children to boarding schools. Girls are especially disadvantaged when cultural constraints such as early marriages prevent them from being able to attend school. Mobile schools require not only committed teachers willing to endure hardship but also support mechanisms that are not easily provided. 71. Whilst universal primary school education may be attainable within a reasonable time frame, access to secondary schooling is more complicated and costly. Many of the communities that the Special Rapporteur visited complained that secondary schooling was out of their reach. Only a select few from pastoralist and hunter-gatherer communities can make it through secondary school, and even fewer manage to achieve a university-level education. 72. There are a number of reasons for this decline of educational achievement over the last years. There has been a reduction of government spending on educational infrastructure and materials; additionally, remote pastoralist areas lack schools and qualified teachers. Moreover, the school curricula are mostly irrelevant for the needs of pastoralists and hunter-gatherers.