In October 1999, on the eve of the World Education Forum, a coalition of civil society organisations joined forces to launch "Global Campaign for Education". GCE was founded by Action Aid, Education International, Oxfam International and the Global March Against Child Labour, and currently represents developmental NGOs and teachers' unions in more than 100 countries.

GCE promotes quality education as a basic human right, and mobilizes public pressure on governments and the international community to fulfill their promises to provide free, compulsory and quality education for all people; in particular for children, women and all disadvantaged, deprived sections of society.

Global Action Week (GAW) for Education, under the aegis of GCE, has been celebrated annually during the month of April from the year 2000, in order to generate mass awareness on the issue of education. We demand governments to live up to their promises made on education five years ago when they signed up to the Millennium Development Goals for ending world poverty. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set out eight priority actions to halve world poverty by 2015. This year, they will break the first of their promises - to get as many girls as boys into classrooms by 2005.

In order to coordinate the activities of Global Action Week in India a coalition, Working Group for Global Action Week (WG4GAW) was formulated in 2004.