Launch of the Institut de Formation aux Métiers de l'Alphabétisation (IFMA) in Morocco

This major event was organised jointly by the UNESCO Office for the Maghreb, Agence Nationale de Lutte contre l'Analphabétisme (ANLCA), the European Union in Morocco, and with the technical support of the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL).

IFMA, which is coordinated by the European Union to UNESCO in partnership with ANLCA, represents a strategic response to literacy challenges in Morocco. This initiative – which is part of ANLCA’s roadmap (2023–2027) and has been under development since June 2021 – aims to professionalize the value chain of literacy work. To do this, the training targets four professions essential to promoting literacy learning: managers, teacher-trainers, supervisors and literacy teachers. Implementation of the project took over 30 months and was done in two phases: the first involved the development of the training system; the second phase saw the piloting of IFMA in two regions of Morocco: Tangier-Tétouan-Al Hoceima and Béni Mellal-Khénifra.

The IFMA launch was attended by national institutional players as well as interested technical and financial partners. Participants were presented with the IFMA training system and invited to share their international knowledge on good practice, explore opportunities for partnerships and collaboration, and assess IFMA’s current and future needs and challenges.

Although Morocco is making progress, it still faces a persistent prevalence of illiteracy, underlining the need to continue efforts to significantly reduce the number of non-literate adults in the country. Committed to this fight, the country is launching an innovative initiative to address this major societal challenge. According to the latest general census of population and housing (GRPH 2014), almost a third of the population aged 10 and over is illiterate, with worrying territorial and gender disparities. The newly launched IFMA training programme is evidence of Morocco’s commitment to addressing this challenge.

IFMA represents a significant step towards achieving the objectives of the Marrakech Framework for Action by fostering a culture of lifelong learning, addressing the challenges associated with digital transformation and climate change, and mitigating inequality.