The meeting is part of the Big Push initiative launched in March 2013 to accelerate progress towards Education for All (EFA) in Africa. Currently 32 out of the 45 countries are very unlikely to achieve the six Education for All goals while 12 countries stand a good chance to attain them if progress is accelerated.

The meeting will bring together 20 sub-Saharan African countries to monitor the progress achieved by the 8 countries participating in the first phase of the Big Push initiative (Angola, Chad, Ivory Coast, Lesotho, Niger, Senegal, Swaziland, and Zambia). Another 12 countries will join the Big Push Initiative during the meeting in Angola.

Participants in the meeting include Ministers of Education, Permanent Secretaries, Basic Education Directors, Parliamentarians, UN High-level Officials as well as representatives of civil society organizations in Africa.

Mobilize political and financial commitment

The workshop is also set to

• build the capacities of country delegates in the development of an EFA Acceleration Framework;
• provide technical guidance to the countries on the further implementation of the acceleration initiative;
• ensure high level commitment to the EFA Acceleration Initiative, agree on the modalities for the EFA National Reviews in the Big Push countries;
• advocate for inclusion of Literacy interventions in national acceleration frameworks and
• to launch the Global Report on Adult Learning and Education in Africa.

The Big Push is an initiative by UNESCO, and in particular the UNESCO Regional Office in Dakar, to support selected sub-Saharan African countries to start a process of re-defining EFA priorities and developing acceleration efforts with urgent and strategic actions. This is being done through the mobilisation of stronger political and financial commitment at the country, regional and global levels.

The initiative was launched during a Regional EFA Acceleration Conference, organized in Dakar, Senegal in March 2013 to kick off the first phase.

The implementation of the Big Push initiative is based on a partnership among organizations in Africa that are part of the EFA Coordination Steering Committee (ADEA, ANCEFA, CONFEMEN, FAWE, UNESCO, UNICEF and UNFPA) and the concerned UNESCO Field Offices.