Education is key to the development of Africa. Today a little more than half of African adults are literate and some 60 per cent of children go to school. UNESCO works to keep education high on the agenda of governments and development partners working in the region.

In Focus Progress for education for women and girls in Africa Two new UNESCO studies examine the important progress made in the education of girls and women in Africa. One survey looks at how basic education for woman and girls is promoted in Africa. The other presents the bold steps taken by four African countries (Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Mozambique and Swaziland) to address country-specific problems of girls' and women's education » More

News

Reviewing progress towards Education for All in Africa May 27, 2005 – (UNESCO Dakar) How is education faring in Africa five years after the World Education Forum? This is the question posed at a regional conference organized by UNESCO Dakar from June 13-15 in Dakar, Senegal. More

Africa Week at UNESCO May 20, 2005 - (UNESCO) A series of events, entitled “Africa Week”, will take place next week at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris. Africa Week is organized on the occasion of Africa Day, celebrated on May 25 every year. More

Improving the management of HIV/AIDS in secondary schools in Botswana April 20, 2005 – (UNESCO) Last week UNESCO’s Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura and Mr Jacob D. Nkate, Minister of Education of Botswana, signed a project plan for enhancing the development of leadership skills in the management of HIV/AIDS in secondary schools in Botswana. More

Unshackling literacy in Africa April 18, 2005 – (UNESCO Institute for Education) If Africa’s populations are to attain an acceptable level of well-being, the search must go on for ways of meeting the challenge of illiteracy, concludes a new UNESCO publication. More

New UNESCO website on Education for All in East Africa April 6, 2005 - (UNESCO Nairobi) A new website provides a wealth of information on Education for All activities in the five countries of the UNESCO Nairobi Cluster Office (Burundi, Eritrea, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda). More

Planning quality education for all in North Africa This week national Education for All coordinators from five North African countries will discuss the issue of quality education. They will meet at a three-day regional seminar in Tunisia. The seminar will examine how the Education for All goals have been taken into consideration in national plans of the region. It will also seek to define the notion of quality of education in an operational way. The countries concerned are Algeria, the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia. More

UNESCO participates in new human rights convention for persons with disabilities February 11, 2005 - (UNESCO) A new human rights convention for persons with disabilities is currently in the making. This convention, once ratified, will be an important tool towards reaching Education for All, particularly in Africa where 90 per cent of children with disabilities are excluded from school. More

UNESCO supports African teachers African teachers are at the heart of UNESCO’s efforts. The Organization is launching a new initiative for teacher training in sub-Saharan Africa. This programme will help countries develop the policies, teacher education, and labour practices that will be required, if the Education for All goals are to be achieved. More

Education for All conference opens in South Africa February 7, 2005 - (UNESCO) Education for All is the theme of a three-day meeting that opens today in Johannesburg, South Africa. Participants are national EFA Coordinators, NGO representatives and education experts from Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The gathering "Joining Hands and Taking Action for Education for All" is co-hosted by World Education, the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) and UNESCO. More

Saving lives, saving minds January 28, 2005 - (UNESCO) New minimum standards for education in emergencies aim at giving over 50 million children a chance to learn, reports the just-published issue of UNESCO's Education Today newsletter. The standards are highly relevant for the countries devastated by the recent tsunami in the Indian Ocean. More

Wanted! Teachers Thirty million teachers are needed to achieve Education for All by 2015. Faced with an unprecedented teacher shortage, some countries are now turning to low-paid, poorly trained teachers. The recent issue of UNESCO's Education Today newsletter looks at the trade-off between quantity and quality. It also report with an project in Cambodia which provides skills training to children and youth and on recent education initiatives around the world. More

Great success for non-formal learning centres in Madagascar January 17, 2005 - Intensive literacy classes have proven effective in Madagascar. After just 48 days of intensive learning, more than 3 out of 4 participants could be considered “literate.” This is one of the encouraging findings of a recent evaluation report of the Government of Madagascar / United Nations System Joint Programme for the Promotion of Basic Education for All Malagasy Children. More

UN launches $27 million flash appeal for education after Tsunami January 7, 2005 - (UNESCO) Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today launched a $977 million flash appeal for emergency aid to tsunami victims. Some $27 million are needed for reestablishing education in Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Seychelles, Somalia and Sri Lanka. This amount will cover the critical work of some forty UN agencies and NGOs from January to the end of June 2005. More

UNESCO IN AFRICA
	Education strategy
	Programme in education
	Who's who (Headquarters, Field Offices & Institutes)
	Partners
	Networks

REGIONAL INITIATIVES
	Education for All
	African Union/NEPAD
	Forum of African Parliamentarians for Education (FAPED)
	Conference of African Ministers of Education (MINEDAF)

SERVICES / RESOURCES

Legal instruments Facts and figures Speeches Articles Publications Selected websites