US First Lady Laura Bush kicked off a three-day visit to Paris with a UNESCO round table discussion on promoting global literacy. Bush, a former teacher and high-profile campaigner for literacy worldwide, is an honorary ambassador for the UN agency's decade of literacy.
"Ending illiteracy is a challenge for every country," she told the participants, who included envoys from Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Madagascar and Egypt as well as Koichiro Matsuura, director-general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
"Yet investing in literacy and education helps governments to meet their fundamental obligations: improving opportunities for children and families, strengthening their economies, and keeping their citizens in good health."
Laura Bush's visit was to continue Monday with a tour of Paris's new Quai Branly museum of tribal arts, as well as the newly-refurbished Musee de L'Orangerie, which hosts some of Claude Monet's best-known water lily murals.
On Tuesday she was to visit the American hospital in Paris, followed in the evening by a dinner with fellow women leaders at the US ambassadors' residence in Paris, according to the White House.
On Wednesday, she was to attend a conference on missing and exploited children -- and on education's role in helping to protect them -- hosted by her French counterpart, Bernadette Chirac, at the Elysee Palace.
