Participants at the World Conference on Education for All held at Jomtien, Thailand in March, 1990 re-examined the goals of education in an effort to realize why their efforts had been unsuccessful at achieving the target. Jomtien underlined the importance of 'meeting basic learning needs' of all individuals.  

A decade long set of directions and commitments were established encouraging large-scale and sustained efforts to further education. 6 areas of action were agreed upon and individual countries had to set their own targets within these areas. The EFA declaration is an example of an international political commitment. The core of this declaration and one that all nations were compelled to rally behind is “the right of all people to education.” However, the national efforts made to implement the EFA mandate were not evaluated till the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal.