EDUCATION IN AFRICA : AN ESSENTIAL HUMAN RIGHT AND PREREQUISITE TO DEVELOPMENT

GOAL:

Lifelong education for all: learning to know learning to do, learning to be, and learning to live together

Basic education for all

Commitments:

- Basic education for all African children
- Literacy and non-formal education among youth and adults in Africa
-Acquisition of human and civic values, life and vocational skills required to alleviate poverty
- Reform of education as a prerequisite to peace and development
- Mobilizing commitments and partnerships for education for all in Africa

Expansion of education systems

Early childhood education and family education in Africa: a means to improve school performance and to reduce inequalities in social and education systems

Africa has been going through a period of rapid population growth, increased urbanization, major social disparities, great numbers of out-of-school children and the alarming spread of AIDS. Disadvantaged families and young children are subject to its worst effects. UNESCO’s actions have addressed the issues of early-childhood care and education in Africa by strengthening national and regional capacities in the areas of research, training, programming and information to enable early-childhood professionals to design appropriate solutions to national early-childhood needs. An early-childhood professional network covering 15 French-speaking African countries - the Réseau Africain Francophone Prime Enfance - was launched in 1996.

National authorities in Africa are seeking to strengthen early-childhood programmes, especially those that are community-based, to improve their quality and content, and to train all those involved in early-childhood activities. They also want to ensure that these programmes cover children from birth up to the age of six, and not just those between the ages of three and six. In some cases, they are in the process of establishing national early-childhood programmes. As far as women and families are concerned, a number of countries wish to increase information and training regarding Family Life Education and legislation in favour of women and families, as well as to put into practice and provide training on the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In each country, a number of resource personnel and institutions exist in the area of early childhood, service provision and material production.

The main early-childhood initiatives in Africa during the 1998-1999 biennium include:

(i) the launching in Bamako (Mali) of a Regional Early Childhood Resource Centre for Francophone Africa, subsequent to the signing of a Letter of Understanding during the Durban Conference (MINEDAF VII) in April 1998;

(ii) the staging of an International Seminar on “mobilizing women to create innovative early education structures” in February 1998 in Bamako in cooperation with the Ministry of Basic Education of Mali and CEMEA of Mali. It brought together 25 people in charge of early-childhood programmes, projects and training in 10 West and Central African countries. Thanks to this Seminar, the experience of the Clos d’enfants project, launched in Mali in 1996 and the first project started up by the Réseau Africain Francophone Prime Enfance, is being extended to other West African countries. This initiative offers mothers and grandmothers training in childcare based on traditional practices;

(iii) a Regional Workshop co-organized with the FICEMEA, the CEMEA of Madagascar and the Malagasy Ministry of Population and Solidarity in Antananarivo (Madagascar) in March 1999 to address the issue of the role of families in early childhood in the Indian Ocean region. It brought together 30 people in charge of early-childhood programmes, services and training on six Indian Ocean islands, four of which are in Africa (Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius and Seychelles), and led to the establishment of the Réseau Prime Enfance Océan Indien, a professional network interlinking the region’s early-childhood actors;

(iv) UNESCO and the World Bank have jointly begun to develop an African Early Childhood Knowledge Base Website within the framework of the Inter-Agency Early Childhood Communication Strategy, for which UNESCO is the lead agency. The Strategy adopted at the meeting held in Paris in May 1997 on Developing an Inter-Agency Early Childhood Communication Strategy, is geared to furthering the exchange of information within the international community of early-childhood organizations.

Girls’ and women’s education in Africa: at the top of UNESCO’s agenda, aimed at empowering women: a sine qua non condition to sustainable human development

In 1990, at the World Conference on Education for All, held in Jomtien (Thailand), 155 nations pledged to provide basic education for all children and massively to reduce adult illiteracy before the end of the decade. The Sixth Conference of Ministers of Education and those responsible for Economic Planning in Africa (MINEDAF VI) identified girls and women among the most vulnerable groups, and the Pan-African Conference on Education for Girls (Ouagadougou, 1993) identified priority areas for a regional framework of action and for national programmes. Within the context of human development, the World Population Conference (Cairo, June 1994) reaffirmed the importance of education for girls and women, and the Fourth Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995) clearly noted that investment in formal and non-formal education and training for girls and women is one of the best means of achieving social and economic development. To further the objective of Education for All, with particular emphasis on girls and women, UNESCO has put forward many initiatives in favour of the African continent, mainly the Special Project on Promoting Girls’ and Women’s Education in Africa, and the programme on Guidance, Counselling and Youth Development in Africa.

“Some 36 million African girls are still not in school and of those who are, 64 per cent drop out before they become literate”, said Chantal Campaoré, First Lady of Burkina Faso, at the First Ladies Sahel Meeting on the Rights of the Child, Education and Development, held in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) in February 1997. This meeting recommended measures to make teachers, parents and representatives of the law aware of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and stressed the need to improve girls’ access to education and retention in school, as well as to reintegrate teenage mothers into the education system.

Special Project: Promoting girls’ and women’s education in Africa

The Special Project has been designed to provide training and technical assistance for planning and implementing more effective schooling for girls, and to develop alternative delivery systems for literacy and non-formal continuing education of women, thus promoting girls’ and women’s empowerment and their status in society. The total budget is US $1,340,082 (US $490,000 from the regular budget and US $850,082 from DANIDA).

The first phase of the project, implemented in over 22 countries (1996-1997), was devoted to developing a common programme of activities in concert with the Member States concerned and multilateral donor agencies, and in cooperation with the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) and the Federation of Women Associations of Africa. Training was provided for the production of multi-channel learning kits within the framework of the literacy and media component of the project. Two regional workshops were organized in the United Republic of Tanzania (16 to 14 January 1997) and Côte d’Ivoire (1 to 13 September 1997) to train 50 key material developers and radio programme producers from 16 countries to prepare, in their own respective countries, kits of gender-sensitive radio programmes and illustrated booklets.

In 1998-1999, as a follow-up to the two subregional workshops for English- and French-speaking sub-Saharan countries, support was offered to 10 countries (including Kenya, South Africa, Togo, Uganda and Zambia) to organize national workshops to produce more materials. The objectives of these workshops are:

(a) to train material developers/non-formal educators (i) to prepare booklets and radio programmes which are gender-sensitive and (ii) to continue to integrate gender concerns into their ongoing work;

(b) to provide radio programme producers with (i) hands-on experience in preparing programmes which are gender-sensitive and (ii) knowledge, experience and attitudes which could be used in their ongoing work.

Achievements:

-The products of the subregional workshops, the booklets in particular, have been widely distributed in the countries concerned, through the Regional Office and at MINEDAF VII, as well as to major African agencies with a focus on women’s education and gender in education.

- The manual on Gender Sensitivity has been published and distributed among professionals responsible for gender sensitization and those working in basic education. It has also served to provide the guidelines for the gender-sensitization part of the training in material development at both regional and national level. Within UNESCO, the Natural Sciences and Communication Sectors, as well as the various sections and divisions, have used the manual as a training guide in their respective work. Its public reception has been strong, and requests continue to come in as the second (revised) edition is under preparation. Special efforts are being made to ensure that this edition reflects African realities and the Special Project’s experience in training and material development.

Sharing the Project experience:

- In order to capitalize on the experience gained from the Project, UNESCO is preparing a series of technical documents on the preparation of rural radio programmes in English- and French-speaking Africa. These documents are based on various technical papers prepared for the subregional workshops. The first of the series, ‘Reaching Out: a non-formal education approach to poverty alleviation’, presents the situation with analysis, trends, problems and issues of post-literacy education and rural radio provision in a number of African countries. It also presents a sample of the products stemming from the subregional workshops, including illustrated booklets and transcripts of radio programmes. The second in the series, Lisez bien, Ecoutez bien, Vivez bien, is a compilation of the experience in preparing the series of French illustrated post-literacy booklets, including the phase on needs identification.

- A collection of post-literacy materials from various continents is under preparation. It will include such booklets produced under the Special Project as “From Tears to Cheers” (Zambia), ‘Parents Have to Go to School’ (Niger), “Tade, the Good Example” (Côte d’Ivoire) and “The Challenge of Youth” (Senegal).

Prospects:

Initially foreseen for a four-year period (28C/5), this Project is being extended for a concluding phase (30C/5), mainly to improve exchange and sharing of experience and materials among the participating countries by, among others, the setting up of an International Centre for Girls’ and Women’s Education in Ouagadougou, and a Guidance, Counselling and Youth Development Centre for Africa in Malawi.

The Guidance, Counselling and Youth Development Programme for Africa

The Guidance, Counselling and Youth Development Programme for Africa has been designed to respond to the ever-increasing number of socio-economic problems faced by young Africans, girls in particular. Premature teenage pregnancies, unemployment, street children, child prostitution, AIDS, child and youth drug abuse, wastage - these are just some of the issues representing a constant source of concern to African Education Ministers. They decided that it was time to give education systems a more active role in the growth and development of young people. In 1994, UNESCO welcomed a proposal submitted by the African Education Ministers which stated that youth guidance and counselling constituted a effective means of tackling the new challenges in the African cultural context.

The Guidance, Counselling and Youth Development Programme is particularly focused on the needs of girls, but does not exclude those of boys. It is designed to train the trainers and is managed by a group of African Education Ministers with the assistance of a Regional Technical Committee. The programme allows beneficiary countries to equip themselves with the necessary institutional capacity for building skills and seeking information on the latest guidance and counselling knowledge and techniques for youth development. Local workshops are held in each of the countries concerned with a view to promoting the programme’s extension at national level. The countries in question are: Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea (Conakry), Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

A technical meeting of facilitators on the programme of guidance and counselling for girls of school age and for women was held in Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire) from 2 to 7 March 1998. It was attended by facilitators from Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Niger and Senegal. The meeting set out to review the eight guidance and counselling training kit units produced by the various pilot-project countries, i.e.: personal life skills; the rights and duties of girls and women; an overview of women’s social and economic rights; reproductive health of adolescents; the participation of women in public life; assessing the pupil-teacher relationship, with particular emphasis on girls; job opportunities for young girls and women; home economics. Copies of these units were submitted to the French-speaking education ministers at a MINEDAF VII (April 1998) fringe meeting attended by representatives of UNESCO, ISESCO, FAWE and other partners present in Durban (South Africa).

From 11 to 16 April 1999, a subregional workshop seminar was held in Bamako (Mali) to look into means of developing the programme of guidance and counselling for girls of school age and for women. It brought together some 40 participants, including the facilitators, educators and resource persons from nine French-speaking countries belonging to the programme: Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea (Conakry), Mali, Niger, Rwanda and Senegal. The seminar’s objectives were fivefold and included efforts to:

(i) examine the content of the above-mentioned units with the facilitators and educators, and enable them, on the one hand, to acquire the necessary counselling skills effectively to help young people in need and, on the other, to contribute towards enhancing these instructor-training tools;

(ii) plan and schedule activities designed to ratify, follow up and assess the units with a view to providing instructor training at national level.

In the final analysis, guidance and counselling services emerged as being of prime importance to African countries, because they will serve to provide psychological, technical and social assistance structures for girls seeking to assert their own independence. The eight units were improved during the seminar. Arrangements now need to be made to ensure that those units are effectively and efficiently employed to the advantage of girls and women by tailoring them to country-specific contexts and training the educators capable of using them.
A series of booklets to supplement the training units is currently being prepared on a variety of subjects of interest to young girls, e.g. sexual violence, reproductive health of adolescents, girls’ rights and duties, and so on. They are set to be accompanied by video and audio cassettes. All of these training tools should be available for the first regional training seminar for trainers due to be held in the latter half of the month of September 1999.

English-language training units have been published and dispatched to all countries concerned. They will soon be available on the Internet. Audio-visual material has been gathered together to serve as unit teaching aids. Booklets on the problems faced by young - especially adolescent - girls, and on science and technology in rural areas, have been prepared to round off the content of the units by FAWE and the UNESCO Office in Nigeria. The English-speaking countries have unanimously agreed to integrate guidance and counselling into their school curricula.

At its third session (5-7 July 1999), the International Committee for the Follow-up of Audience Africa recommended to the Director-General of UNESCO that “bold initiatives be taken for the advancement of women and the defence of children’s rights. Concretely,” it went on, “in the area of basic education for girls in rural areas, the Committee proposes that the Director-General call on Member States to introduce free schooling for girls and envisage compulsory schooling for rural and urban youth, both male and female, with the basic knowledge, know-how and life skills that will make them active agents of development”.

Inclusive schooling and community education: a way to make schools educationally more effective and to tackle poverty

“The fundamental principle of the inclusive school is that all children should learn together, wherever possible, regardless of any difficulties or differences they may have. Inclusive schools must recognize and respond to the diverse needs of their students, accommodating both different styles and rates of learning and ensuring quality education to all through appropriate curricula, organizational arrangements, teaching strategies, resource use and partnerships with their communities. There should be a continuum of support and services to match the continuum of special needs encountered in every school”. (Salamanca Framework for Action, Article 7)

Project on Inclusive Schools and Community Support Programmes

At the World Conference on Education for All in Jomtien (Thailand), the United Nations estimated that of the 600 million persons in the world with disabilities, 150 million were children under the age of 15, very few of whom (less than two per cent) were receiving any education or training. In 1996, as a follow-up to the World Conference on Special Needs Education held in 1994 in Salamanca (Spain), UNESCO launched a Project on Inclusive Schools and Community Support Programmes which is expected to run until 2001. The purpose of the project is to support action and disseminate information on small-scale innovations at national level, promoting the inclusion of children with disabilities and learning difficulties in regular schools. The project involves partnerships with ministries of education, parent groups and civic communities, and aims to develop national and regional human capacities as well as experiments in support of inclusive education.

As part of the process enabling countries to develop specific project proposals, UNESCO organized a series of three meetings to raise and improve the awareness of governments, education ministries in particular, regarding the Salamanca principles and Framework for Action. These meetings targeted principally the countries of French-speaking Africa, where policies and programmes geared to inclusive schooling for children and young people with special educational needs were as yet rudimentary or non-existent. The first of them, the Subregional Seminar to Promote Multisectoral Collaboration in Support of Persons with Disabilities, was organized by UNESCO, ILO and WHO in Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire) and took place from 28 September to 1 October 1995. The second, a seminar for French-speaking African countries on the Project on Inclusive Schools and Community Support Programmes, was held in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) from 10 to 13 December 1996. Finally, the five French-speaking countries of West Africa took part in an international workshop on Management for Innovation in Special Needs Education, organized by UNESCO in Ghana in April 1997.

The first phase of the project, funded by Denmark, Norway, Portugal and Sweden, made it possible for 18 countries to develop inclusive-education-oriented policies and practices, 13 of them in sub-Saharan Africa: Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Sao Tome and Principe, Tanzania and Zambia. Apart from the initial financial support provided to the countries participating in the first phase (a total budget of approximately US $325,000), UNESCO’s inputs consisted of brief interventions by consultants and/or facilitators and resource persons for training workshops in individual countries, the provision of materials, a number of study visits, and timely observations and guidance. The 1996-1997 Report on Inclusive Schools and Community Support Programmes gives a review of the first phase of the project, and describes initiatives undertaken in, among others, the following six African countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Malawi and Zambia.

The second phase (1998-1999), funded by Denmark, Finland and Norway, extends to the following African countries: Cameroon, Ghana, Madagascar, Mauritius and South Africa (with a total budget of approximately US $125,000). Six workshops were held in the Africa region in 1998-1999 on Inclusive Schools and Community Support Programmes: in Yaoundé, Cameroon (16-22 November 1998 and 11-18 April 1999), Mauritius (30 November-4 December 1998), Madagascar (23 April-1 May 1999) and Ghana (7-12 and 14-19 June 1999). Networking between the countries involved in Phase I and Phase II is constantly being promoted. Through networking and exchange opportunities, at subregional level in particular, the Project as a whole is expected to benefit a wider number of countries than those participating directly.

Other activities within the framework of Inclusive Schools and Community Support Programmes include:

(i)- “On the Deaf”: a training video for parents, educators and community workers on the early identification of deafness and the importance of sign language to the development of a deaf child, especially targeted at African countries.

(ii)- a workshop on Human Resource Development in Support of Inclusive Education, held in Uganda in 1999. Hosted by the Uganda National Institute of Special Education, the workshop brought together 24 teacher-educators and trainers from regular and special education teacher-training programmes in seven countries in Africa: Ethiopia, Ghana, Lesotho, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe;

(iii)- a subregional workshop entitled ‘Développement des ressources humaines : Appui à l’Education intégratrice’, to be held in Bamako (Mali) from 28 November to 4 December 1999, in close cooperation with UNESCO Bamako and with the participation of teachers, head teachers, teacher trainers, administrators and parents’ groups from Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius and Senegal.

UNESCO-BREDA staged a regional workshop on special educational needs in Bamako (Mali) in collaboration with the Panafricaine des Handicapés and Mali National Commission for UNESCO; This took place in Bamako (Mali) in February 1999 with the participation of nine African countries. A further regional workshop from 22 to 26 March 1999, this time on integrated education, was attended by African experts in the education of children with special educational needs.

Reaching the unreached: towards equal opportunities for all

The UNESCO Programme for the Education of Children in Need

This UNESCO programme (launched in 1992) strives to develop and strengthen education, vocational training and sporting, artistic and recreational activities with a view to promoting the rehabilitation of children in need and marginalized youth via a range of projects financed by private funds mobilized within the Programme framework. US $1.6 million worth of such funds have been mobilized and allocated to projects in Africa during this biennium (1998-1999), matching the sum mustered and allocated to regional projects during the last. The following countries have benefited from UNESCO support in this domain: Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Togo and Uganda. Further projects are being prepared for Angola, Ghana and Zambia. They focus on developing activities in the field of education, training and accommodation to help children in need and marginalized youth, as well as on training to enhance small-scale trades, solidarity and citizenship.

The UNESCO Programme on the Education of Children in Difficult Circumstances and Street Children

This UNESCO programme strives to promote basic education for street children and to prevent children in difficult circumstances from succumbing to a life on the streets. Activities in Africa during the present biennium (1998-1999) have included:

(i) close cooperation in Namibia between the municipality of Windhoek, the Namibia National Commission for UNESCO and a variety of Government departments (the Ministries of Health and Social Security, Youth and Sport, Basic Education and Culture, Prisons and Criminal Services), culminating in the building of two - now fully operational - reception centres for children in difficult circumstances;

(ii)- a subregional training workshop for educators and social workers, held in Windhoek in September 1998, on the psychology of children in difficult circumstances. It provided an excellent opportunity to set up a subregional network to deal with such children, and was so successful that the participants from 10 subregional countries expressed a firm desire to continue working with UNESCO on their behalf;

(iii)- a project in Mali to support the schooling and social reintegration of children in difficult circumstances inhabiting the inner city and the suburbs of Bamako. Work to build and equip a multipurpose national centre able to cater for the education of up to a hundred such children in difficult circumstances has been completed, and the centre will be in use before the end of the year.

Special Project: “Enhancement of learning opportunities for marginalized youth”

The global problem of growing marginalization, unemployment and disenchantment among young people, as well as the resultant negative consequences for social development, prompted Member States to pay special attention to the enhancement of learning opportunities for young men and women. A six-year project entitled “Enhancement of learning opportunities for marginalized youth” (launched in April 1996) offers marginalized youngsters in mainly poor urban areas a second chance to acquire basic functional education, i.e. training in both income generation and life skills. It focuses on the need to foster the right attitudes (empowerment, self-confidence, participation, solidarity and so on) and vocational aptitudes to encourage self-employment, and seeks partnership with communities and local associations acting directly on the causes of marginalization, using the improvement of immediate surroundings as a means of achieving empowerment and autonomy.

Of the 20 operational projects launched in 1998-1999, the following five have been implemented in Africa (funded by either extrabudgetary or regular budget resources):

(i)- in Mozambique (US $241,000: extrabudgetary), two youth centres were established in 1998 in the towns of Beira and Maputo, and activities were evaluated for the benefit of marginalized youth, former street children and demobilized boy soldiers. The training provided at these centres has consisted of a blend of income-generating skills and literacy, numeracy, accountancy and health awareness. The 250 young people trained in Beira have started to train other young people at the newest centres in Morrumbala (1999);

(ii)- in Rwanda (US $38,700: regular budget), a centre has been set up in the Nelson Mandela Village for Peace which offers non-formal basic education for boys and girls and for widows;

(iii)- in Senegal (US $225,000: extrabudgetary), two projects are being implanted in deprived neighbourhoods of Dakar: (a) non-formal basic education for marginalized youth, including education for citizenship and skills training; training materials have been produced and trainers trained in participatory approaches and active pedagogy; (b) upgrading of slums in partnership with local communities, giving young boys and girls an opportunity for income-generation, autonomy and social inclusion;

(iv)- in South Africa (US $241,000: extrabudgetary), youth centres in and around “farm schools” offering basic education, income-generating activities, counselling and other activities are due for completion in two provinces (Northern Cape, Mpumalanga Province);

(v)- in Togo (US $15,000: regular budget), two projects have been developed: (a) basic education and training in carpentry for out-of-school and unemployed rural youth; (b) basic education and training in small business management and marketing designed to enable young people to set up rural cooperatives.

Extrabudgetary funding has been secured for a further two projects which are in the pipeline but which are currently awaiting finalization of project documents (one in Guinea and the other in Mali).

Lessons learnt:

Although the overall evaluation of the Special Project will not be carried out during the next biennium, experience gained from operational projects reveals that non-formal education and training in basic skills can lead to the empowerment of marginalized and impoverished groups. They are a powerful tool if linked to potential income-generating activities and to micro-finance to support the creation of micro-enterprises and self-employment.

-The Learning Without Frontiers (LWF) project entitled “Reaching Unreached Learners in Mozambique” seeks to respond to the needs of the country’s large numbers of unreached learners, and to attend, in an integrated fashion, to a growing diversity of learning needs, many of which remain currently unmet. During the spring of 1998, a national team worked on the development of an operational framework of action focusing on the identification of specific strategies to improve efforts to attend to learning needs in Mozambique, as well as on the participatory design of interventions within that context. The third and final phase of the project (concluded in May 1999) identified and designed concrete activities of the development process for a “trigger” project. UNICEF has since followed it up with a project on LKW in Nampula province in collaboration with the Islamic community. Both the Netherlands Embassy in Maputo and UNICEF stand ready to supply financial support for generalized follow-up in Mozambique, for which a project proposal is currently being considered by the Mozambican authorities.

- In the period 1997-1998, the International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) launched three case studies on programmes for the social integration of disadvantaged youth in French-speaking Africa. Participants from three national teams (Burkina Faso, Guinea and Mali) took part in a workshop held in Burkina Faso to discuss the finalization and harmonization of methodology.

The initial results of this work were presented at a workshop in Conakry in April 1999. A final workshop will take place in October 1999, when all reports and a synopsis will be presented to an audience including officials from education ministries and interested NGOs and aid agencies.

Improving the quality and relevance of Basic Education for All

• The UNESCO/DANIDA-sponsored Basic Learning Materials Initiative

The second phase of the UNESCO/DANIDA-sponsored Basic Learning Materials Initiative was launched in 1996 under the aegis of the Education for All Forum and as part of the follow-up to the World Conference on Education for All, held in Jomtien (Thailand) in 1990.
In 1998-1999, UNESCO and DANIDA jointly organized consultation meetings aimed at setting in place national mechanisms (national books policies and book development councils) with a view to improving coordination between the public and private sectors and, hence, clearing the way towards regular supplies of text books, planning for the production of basic teaching aids, and training activities in the following African countries: Burkina Faso, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania and Uganda.

• EFA 2000 Assessment:

Within the framework of the EFA 2000 Assessment, two national and three subregional workshops have been carried out on Monitoring Learning Achievement (MLA) and on Conditions of Teaching and Learning (CTL) in Primary Schools of Sub-Saharan Africa.

As a result, five countries (Malawi, Mozambique, Madagascar, Uganda and Zambia) have carried out the EFA 2000 Assessment Survey on Conditions of Teaching and Learning in their primary schools, using the instruments prepared during the workshop and backed by BMZ financial support. Similar surveys are being conducted by two other countries (Mali and Senegal). Madagascar, Malawi, Uganda and Zambia have already submitted their final reports to UNESCO.

The workshop culminated in the development of the above four questionnaires and instruments relating to literacy, numeracy and life skills. The instruments were pre-tested on Grade 4 pupils in pilot surveys in Malawi (20 primary schools) and South Africa (30 primary schools). Six resource persons from the subregion monitored the pre-testing. Seven countries (Botswana, Malawi, Mauritius, Namibia, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia) are carrying out the survey on Monitoring Learning Achievement (MLA) and Conditions of Teaching and Learning (CTL) at Grade 4. A workshop on data analysis and report writing will be held in South Africa from 11 to 15 October 1999 for all African countries implementing the surveys.

By the end of this year, some 30 African countries should have benefited from the joint UNESCO-UNICEF Project on Monitoring Learning Achievement and Conditions of Teaching and Learning in Primary Schools, and will have been able to analyse the most recent data for quality improvement in basic education.

• Literacy initiatives at the national level

UNESCO has, since 1997, collaborated with UNICEF in providing technical backstopping to the Project on Basic Education for Adolescents (BEFA) in Rodrigues Island (Mauritius), aimed at helping out-of-school youth to join learning centres. UNESCO has been involved in the evaluation of the Project’s implementation, the training of NGO managers in non-formal education, and the running of an operational workshop for the preparation of indigenous learning materials. Illustrated booklets have been prepared to reinforce learning outside the classroom. UNESCO has also assisted in the assessment of learners’ abilities. From investigations and interviews with learners in villages, it has emerged that the main problems faced are: fighting within and among families, drug abuse, sex education, discrimination against women and coping on meagre resources. The strength of this Project is that it brings young people together with experts. UNESCO is actually planning to extend it to the entire country. In Madagascar, a series of national training workshops were held from 28 April to 19 June 1998 for grass-roots literacy and post-literacy practitioners, as well as radio broadcasting for awareness-raising aimed at bolstering and developing post-literacy. National workshops were held in Mozambique (29 March to 10 April 1999) and Zambia (from 29 March to 4 April and from 19 to 26 July 1998) to provide literacy personnel with training in the planning and management of literacy programmes, and to formulate a national policy proposal. Workshops were also organized on (i) improving: the quality of large classes in Portuguese-speaking African countries (Cape Verde) and (ii) access to basic education for vulnerable children (Angola).

Training and research

• The International Literacy Institute (ILI), in cooperation with the UNESCO Office in Dakar (Senegal) and the Ministry of Basic Education and National Languages of Senegal, organized the Africa Regional Literacy Forum in Dakar from 16 to 20 March 1998. The Forum, which was the first all-Africa literacy meeting in decades, was co-sponsored by a host of other agencies and attended by almost 200 participants from 34 countries. One in two adults is illiterate in Africa, compared to one in four world-wide, with women forming the vast majority of illiterates. However, there are great disparities within the continent itself: illiteracy rates in Guinea-Bissau and Senegal, for instance, are 73.66 and 49 per cent respectively. Senegal, the country hosting the Forum, actively supports literacy programmes in six different national languages, and had 30 per cent of its 1998 budget slated for education. The main issues discussed at the meeting were national languages as well as technology for the enhancement of education and training in Africa.

• UNESCO has provided primary education personnel with capacity-building assistance in school supervision and research as well as curriculum development for teacher training in the following countries: Benin, Burundi, Rwanda, South Africa and Zambia.

• IIEP’s main activities in the fields of training and research include:

(i)- a subregional training course in Mali for 24 potential trainers (i.e. those responsible for the training of inspectors and principals in French-speaking African countries), which dealt mainly with the role of supervision in improving the administration of primary schools;

(ii)- a Project on Improving Teacher Supervision and Support Services to analyse different country experiences in providing professional support to teachers with a view to developing efficient strategies for the future. During the period 1997-1998, four national teams (from Botswana, Namibia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe) were set up, and national diagnoses were produced for each country. A technical workshop was organized in Harare in March 1998 to pave the way for a comparative analysis. A Subregional Policy Seminar took place in Botswana in June 1999 to examine the situation of school supervision and support in Eastern and Southern Africa, and to discuss innovative strategies to improve the functioning and effectiveness of those services in the region. It was attended by 37 participants, Directors or Deputy Directors of Education, Chief Inspectors and senior staff from training institutions in 13 countries including Botswana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe;

(iii)- a Meeting of the National Research Coordinators for the Southern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ) in Durban (South Africa) from 14 to 24 April 1998, attended by 21 educational planners from 12 countries in the Southern Africa subregion (Botswana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe). One of the main purposes of the Meeting was to commence work on the design of SACMEQ’s second educational-policy research project, scheduled to run from late 1998 to 2001. The project is geared to undertaking cooperative cross-national research which can be used to guide government decision-making aimed at improving the quality of education. Its main focus is on assessing literacy and numeracy achievement at Grade 6.

•UNESCO’s Learning Without Frontiers (LWF) Unit and the Advancing Basic Education and Literacy 2 (ABEL 2) Project jointly staged a practitioners’ forum on “Interactive Radio Instruction” in Paris (March 1999). Participants from around the world included five from the following African countries: Burundi, Cape Verde, Djibouti, Guinea and South Africa. LWF has also worked in collaboration with the NGO Programme on Literacy and Education for All, and the UNESCO-Burkina Faso Field Office to organize a workshop on Transforming Schools into Open Learning Communities, held in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) from 12 to 16 July 1999. It has provided a unique opportunity for practitioners and policy-makers to work together to create new visions and analytical frameworks for the development of community school projects. Participants came from the following countries in the Africa region: Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

• A Seminar on Leadership Training for Leaders of Teachers’ Unions in Africa was held in Port Louis (Mauritius) from 15 to 19 February 1999. It was attended by 29 representatives from 10 teachers’ unions in Botswana, Lesotho, Mauritius, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. It was also attended by resource persons from the organizing bodies: Educational International, UNESCO Maputo Office, ILO/TRAVINT (Geneva), the World Bank, the Institute of Research on the Economy of Education (IREDU) and the University of Burgundy (France). The objective of the Seminar was to train participants in educational and economic issues affecting the status of teachers, so that participants could negotiate on a more informed basis with educational and donor agencies in their respective countries.

Reform of education: a prerequisite to face the challenges of the twenty-first century

Reconstruction and development of education systems in Africa

• Modernizing education through national education policies and plans

• Following the establishment of a Ten-Year Programme for the Development of Education (PRODEC) in Mali within the framework of the project Appui à la Formulation et à la Mise en Oeuvre d’un Programme de Développement, the Government of Mali received technical assistance to help finalize documents for the successful Round Table of donor agencies held in Bamako from 25 to 28 June 1998. Prior to the Round Table, the Government and UNDP had asked UNESCO to draft a project to support the implementation of PRODEC. An intersectoral team dialoguing with the units specializing in the various components of the project to be identified (institutional support, Culture of Peace, schooling for girls and women’s literacy, the TOKTEN higher education programme) travelled to Bamako to undertake the task from 11 to 18 February 1998. Its mission culminated in a document laying down the preliminary guidelines for mounting a support project for the implementation of PRODEC (March 1998). The document served to attract US $6 million worth of funding from UNDP and the Norwegian cooperation agency. The finalized Programme Support Document (April 1999) sets the sum pledged at approximately US $9.2 million and has been submitted to the Malian authorities for signing. The project is due to be launched in September-October 1999.

• Within the framework of the project “Support to the Coordination and Programming of Development Assistance”, UNESCO has worked with the Rwandan Ministry of Education to draw up three documents submitted for examination at the Consultations des Bailleurs de Fonds sur l’Education, la Sécurité Alimentaire et le Secteur Privé (held in February 1999): first, the “Study of the Education Sector in Rwanda”; second, the “Plan of Action for Education in Rwanda (1998-2000): recovery and development”; third, the Document de Travail pour la Consultation Sectorielle de l’Education. These documents constitute reference, coordination and follow-up tools for setting the Rwandan education system back on its feet in the wake of the tragic events of 1994. The budget mobilized for the project amounts to US $200,000 (UNDP).

• Within the framework of the United Nations System-Wide Initiative on Africa (UNSIA), UNESCO has carried out a project in Senegal financed by UNDP (US $322,950) whose aim is to supply technical support to help the Senegalese Government and its Ministry of Basic Education in particular, draw up a ten-year programme for the development of basic education. From the start of the process of policy-making for that subsector in October 1997, the Organization remained on hand through to the finalization of the Ten-Year Plan for Basic Education (Educational Policy Document and Plan of Action 1998-2008), which includes an implementation strategy and a macroeconomic programme. Key basic and secondary education staff were invited to France to attend two training seminars designed to ensure that they understood and could work with the simulation models they would be called upon to use. In preparation for the final Round Table, the project also supported the drafting of documents for technical and financial partners. Although the sub-sector of basic education is now ready and waiting, the Sectoral Round Table cannot be held for several months to come, owing to delays in the drafting of a Ten-Year Plan in other subsectors which are currently receiving technical and financial support from the World Bank.

• In Chad, the Programme-cadre Education et Formation en Relation avec l’Emploi (EFE), which has been granted a budget totalling US $1,309,540 from UNDP, is set to supply technical support to the Secrétariat Executif du Comité National EFE (CONEFE) and to the seven sectoral ministries in charge of education, vocational training and employment. The aim is to help them manage the coordinated implementation of investment programmes in those three key sectors and mobilize the necessary outside funding. UNESCO supplies institutional support to the CONEFE Secretariat, and technical support to the two Government departments in charge of education (the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education and Ministry of Higher Education and Research). There are two projects offering the EFE framework programme technical backstopping: the STS Programme-cadre EFE and the SPPD Etudes thématiques sur le système éducatif, whose role it is to help implement the plan for the development and strengthening of the Chad education system. To this end, twelve studies are currently under way with a specific focus on the country’s education sector.

• Under the framework of an interdisciplinary technical assistance assignment carried out in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in October-November 1998, a three-year plan of priority action has been drawn up for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of school buildings, and to supply them with furniture and teaching equipment. Meanwhile, consultation services aimed at reforming education have been provided to the following African countries: Burkina Faso, Chad, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Mozambique, Senegal and Zimbabwe.


• Working Group of Education Sector Analysis (WGESA)

The Working Group of Education Sector Analysis (WGESA) of the Association for the Development of African Education (ADEA), for which UNESCO is the lead agency, was established in 1989 with a view to improving the quality, use and accessibility of education-sector studies as a means of designing improved national education policies and cooperation programmes. Its major ongoing activities involve reviews of education-sector analysis in four African countries: Burkina Faso (US $114,700), Ghana (US $98,700), Lesotho (US $107,000) and Mozambique (US $101,300). Similar reviews have been completed in Ethiopia (US $70,000) and Zimbabwe (US $82,200). These reviews are all carried out by national, self-constituted teams, the aim being to strengthen both national capacities in education sector analysis and links between policy formulation and implementation. WGESA coordinates and funds the reviews, and provides technical inputs during the whole process via specially appointed resource persons. It is also responsible for publishing and disseminating the final report. In addition, WGESA has provided 13 countries (Benin, Botswana, Cape Verde, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Namibia, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Swaziland, Tanzania and Zambia) with technical assistance to revive their education systems, and staged several seminars during 1998-1999: a seminar on sectoral analysis of education in Burkina Faso (November 1998); a seminar to heighten awareness of education-sector analysis in Lesotho (November 1998); seminars on the organization of national studies in Mozambique (January 1999) and Ghana (February 1999). Mention should also be made of the SADC Initiative in Educational Policy Development, Planning and Management, carried out by UNESCO Harare with the support of the Royal Dutch Embassies in Pretoria and Harare, whose aim has been to devise a programme of regional activities in support of national capacity-building in the areas of education-policy analysis, policy development, planning and management.

A study covering Burkina Faso, Ghana and Mozambique is being conducted under the title “Study on Partnerships Between Ministries of Education and International Funding and Technical Assistance Agencies in Education Sector Development Programmes”, and a Comparative Seminar on National Reviews on Education Sector Analysis is scheduled to take place in Pretoria (South Africa) on 2 and 3 December 1999 to discuss comparative experiences and to reinforce cross-fertilization of African experiences in education-sector analysis.

• International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP)

• During the 1998-1999 biennium, IIEP received 39 full-time trainees and 23 Visiting Trainees from 21 African countries: Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Togo, Uganda, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. The following is a description of IIEP activities in the Africa region.

• Educational policy analysis, planning and management
Drawing on the experience acquired from the “Indicators in educational planning” courses for countries in English-speaking Africa (1996 and 1997), a course was held in Maputo (Mozambique) in July 1998 for Portuguese-speaking African countries with the cooperation of the Mozambican Ministry of Education. It was attended by 17 participants from the following countries: Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique and Sao Tome and Principe. In April 1999, a follow-up meeting took place in Praia (Cape Verde) to discuss the first drafts of their respective national documents with a view to strengthening the indicator analysis and finalizing the document. At national level, IIEP activities have been focused on the following areas:

(i)- in Chad, within the framework of the UNDP/UNESCO/ILO Project on the adaptation of the country’s data-handling chain, IIEP has continued to provide support for the renovation of the Department of Education’s statistical system. Funds for this project are provided by UNDP;

(ii)- in Senegal, three studies financed by UNESCO and the World Bank on staff management, personnel management in the Senegalese Ministry of Education, and on primary and secondary education began in June 1997 in cooperation with IIEP. Data-gathering and analysis of the situation in the subsectors concerned has been developed with the collaboration of two local follow-up technical committees comprising persons in charge of various sectors of the Ministry as well as community representatives (unions and parents’ associations). The aim of the studies is to serve as a basis for preparing forthcoming intervention;

(iii)- in Côte d’Ivoire, IIEP conducted a mid-term evaluation of the Workforce Training Support Project (PAFPA) in October 1997 at the behest of the Secretary-General of the Development Fund for In-Service Training (FDFP). The FDFP subsequently asked for the Institute’s technical assistance in helping to develop new ways of delivering PAFPA training in line with the recommendations stemming from the evaluation. The Ministry of Basic Education asked the IIEP to assist in the preparation of an intensive training programme for its senior staff. An initial IIEP team travelled to Abidjan in January 1998 and practical steps towards determining the training needs began the following autumn. Funds are provided through a World Bank loan.

Meanwhile, IIEP has gone to great lengths to set up a network of some 200 IIEP “depository libraries”, 91 of them in Africa. This initiative marks a major innovation in the Institute’s dissemination work, with the central aim of the network being to improve access to IIEP documents and publications in developing countries.

The Institute is also set to mount a training course for senior and middle-ranking officials responsible for the design and implementation of educational development projects in six French-speaking countries in Central Africa. The course is due to take place from 22 to 29 September 1999 in Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo) and will be attended by representatives from Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo and Gabon.

• Costs, finance and budgetary procedures

IIEP ran a seminar in Saly Portudal (Senegal), in March 1998 in cooperation with CODESRIA and financed by the ADEA Working Group on Education and Finance/CIDA, covering issues linked to educational finance, costs-related information systems and budget preparationand implementation. National teams from Benin, Cameroon, Mauritius, Niger, Senegal, Swaziland and Uganda took part. A similar course will be organized for educational planners and financial managers from Portuguese-speaking African countries in Angola in September 1999. It will cover topics to do with cost analysis, evaluation of funding requirements, funding policies and budgetary programming and management, and will be attended by participants from Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and Sao Tome and Principe.

A study on expenditure for education in Benin was carried out in 1998 with a view to setting up an information system on educational expenditure in the country. This study, which has covered all levels of education from pre-primary to higher education, has resulted in the evaluation of the financing provided by the public authorities, families and private bodies, as well as external funding for the different categories of schools.

• Project : Réseau Sous-Régional Africain d’Etablissements Pilotes pour la Rénovation de l’Enseignement Secondaire (2 RENOV)

The Réseau Sous-Régional Africain d’Etablissements Pilotes pour la Rénovation de l’Enseignement Secondaire (2 RENOV) project was designed for six countries in West Africa (Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, Senegal and Togo), all of which face the prospect of a doubling in enrolments in the decade to come. The project aims to create a network geared to modernizing secondary education through the use of information and communication technologies in teaching. It forms the direct sequel to a previous think-tank seminar on the theme, entitled “Virtual campuses, on-line services and new teaching aids: what applications for secondary education?” organized by UNESCO and the Coopération Française (with its Réseau Africain de Formation à Distance [RESAFAD] initiative), in collaboration with the UNESCO Office in Dakar (BREDA) from 24 to 26 March 1999. The event was also attended by national secondary education managers from West African countries forming part of the RESAFAD network, and by representatives from the Agence de la Francophonie, the World Bank, UNFPA and FAPE.

Drawing on in-depth consultations carried out by pioneers in the field in the participating countries, further dialogue will take place at a general meeting of national operators and decision-makers on the one hand, and aid-agency representatives on the other, which is due to take place towards the end of 1999 with a view to finalizing a project document and deciding on the distribution of contributions.

Preventive education: AIDS and drugs prevention

FACTS:

• Since it first began its action in the field of preventive education to combat HIV/AIDS, UNESCO has continuously endeavoured to help Member States draw up and implement national plans of action aimed at introducing preventive education into school curricula and extracurricular learning programmes. Since January 1996, UNESCO has been working alongside five other United Nations agencies (WHO, UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF and the World Bank) as a co-sponsor of the United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). With the epidemic gaining ground throughout the developing world in general and Africa in particular, UNAIDS and its co-sponsors decided to boost their action to stem its spread in Africa. UNESCO, in collaboration with UNAIDS and the Projet Régional VIH staged a workshop entitled “Atelier régional sur l’éducation préventive VIH/SIDA à l’intention des organizations féminines de base” in Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire) from 7 to 11 September 1998. Participants included the following 17 English- and French-speaking African countries: Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Malawi, Mali, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, Togo, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The main aim was to curb the HIV transmission rate among African women by enabling them to protect themselves through greater awareness-raising and by equipping them with the necessary knowledge and skills. An English-French bilingual booklet was produced to serve as a practical guide to preventive HIV/AIDs education designed for the leaders of grass-roots African women’s associations. UNESCO and UNAIDS jointly organized a subregional seminar for decision-makers designed to drive home the need to introduce preventive education into school curricula for the sake of the fight against AIDS and drug abuse. This subregional seminar to mobilize decision-makers with a view to incorporating AIDS prevention and drug-abuse prevention in school curricula took place in Accra (Ghana) from 21 to 25 September 1998 with participants from Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, and observers from Côte d’Ivoire and Mali. Its primary goals were: to heighten awareness among education, health and youth and sports ministers and among NGOs regarding the need for preventive education to combat AIDS and drug abuse; to introduce them to effective preventive-education strategies; and to encourage them to draw up country-level plans of action for the integration of preventive education into school curricula. Furthermore, UNESCO, with UNAIDS financial backing, organized a subregional workshop for local educators and others working with children in difficult circumstances in six African countries (Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Senegal and Togo), offering them training in the use of education for AIDS and drugs prevention. This subregional training workshop for workers and educators of children in difficult circumstances on preventive education against drugs and AIDS was held in Conakry (Guinea) from 11 to 21 January 1999. The workshop ultimately sought to enable participants to share their experience and establish an agenda for action at country level. It should be pointed out that the UNESCO programme on the education of children in difficult circumstances, which co-organized the event with the Section for Preventive Education, has started up a project in Guinea aimed at strengthening the AIDS and drugs prevention skills of social workers and educators dealing with children in difficult circumstances.

Furthermore, UNESCO’s work via youth associations and organizations to encourage young people to mobilize and take prevention initiatives has included a rural-area HIV/AIDS awareness-raising campaign in 13 regions of Namibia, and the publication of five issues of “Straight Talk”, a Zimbabwean newspaper produced for young people by young people with the help of UNICEF and Johns Hopkins University. Also worth noting is the creation of an information centre and regional database on HIV/AIDS and drug abuse at the UNESCO Office in Harare, and the International Meeting of Young People held at UNESCO Headquarters in February 1998: this was attended by three young Africans from Kenya, Togo and Zimbabwe and marked the launch of the Youth Charter for a Twenty-first Century Free of Drugs.

UNESCO took part in the gathering staged on 19 and 20 January 1999 as part of its efforts to strengthen partnership with UNAIDS in its fields of competence. Against that backdrop, UNESCO set up a special AIDS-prevention coordination unit within the Natural Sciences Sector to bolster UNESCO action within the framework of an integrated strategy, and to promote action at country level. The Unit, in liaison with the Priority Africa Department, has accordingly embarked upon a campaign to ensure that Field offices in Africa are alive to the need to develop country-level activities to combat AIDS in cooperation with the other UNAIDS co-sponsor agencies. To that end, UNESCO organized a consultation of African Offices aimed at clarifying the role that its representatives in the field play at country level. Twenty-two of the 24 questionnaires dispatched have been returned. In offices located in countries experiencing a state of unrest, the view expressed is that special thinking is needed on what action to take. Meanwhile, UNESCO Offices in Africa are all participating in the UNAIDS inter-agency working group on the matter in their respective countries, and most are developing activities outside the group with a UNESCO National Commission or any of a whole range of local NGOs.

In addition to the above, it is fitting to take a look at the activities prompted by Headquarters and the Regional Office. For instance, UNESCO-administered UNFPA projects (29 in Africa, including 23 in the field of formal education) all include an AIDS-related component:

- the activities conducted by the Social and Human Sciences Sector with law-student organizations within the framework of a project tackling discrimination against young persons with AIDS;

- the activities of the Culture Sector conducted within the framework of a project designed to promote a cultural approach to HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, one outstanding example being the staging of a regional seminar on the subject in Harare (Zimbabwe) from 5 to 9 April 1999;

- activities in the field of communication, e.g. the large-scale UNESCO project in Central and Southern Africa encouraging press coverage of the spread of HIV/AIDS in the countries seen as worst affected by the epidemic;

- certain areas of IPDC projects in Africa touching on the fight against AIDS (e.g. social mobilization via community media);

- regional activities initiated by the Dakar Regional Office in cooperation with the Section for Preventive Education;

- the Youth and Solidarity summer camp in Palmarin (Senegal) in August 1998 and subsequent publication of a manual, Education par les Pairs pour un Avenir Viable, prepared for young people by young people;

- a regional seminar on peer-group learning, held in Mauritius in February 1999.

A final example: the pilot project launched in Côte d’Ivoire in partnership with the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention (presided over by Professor Luc Montagnier) and the Côte d’Ivoire Government resulting in the creation of a Centre Intégré de Recherches Biocliniques sur le SIDA in Abidjan. The priority goals of that centre, a single site offering facilities for basic and applied AIDS research combined with clinical follow-up for patients, are to: disseminate scientific knowledge on AIDS throughout the West Africa region; help train regional scientific and medical staff in the region; develop research aimed at supplying treatment attuned to the needs of patients in a region where the AIDS epidemic is particularly rife. To date, more than 300 patients have received treatment at the centre and benefited from access to antiretroviral drugs.

All in all, while UNESCO’s action in Africa started to become more diversified during the 1998-1999 biennium, it needs strengthening still further. The Organization has long been identified strictly with preventive education and the field of education generally, but in view of the dramatic spread of AIDS, its focus has had to shift to drawing on all of its spheres of competence in order to improve prevention by actively modifying behaviour patterns.

A solution is bound to follow once a vaccine can be perfected, but since access to triple therapy is still restricted by cost, the North-South divide vis-à-vis the principle of the right to health for all is growing ever-wider. The Director-General condemned that scandalous divide in his address to the Conference of Ministers of Education of African Members States (MINEDAF VII, April 1998), and called for greater equity for developing countries. Until a vaccine becomes available, stronger global and integrated action geared to AIDS prevention in Africa is needed. Such is the commitment of UNESCO within the framework of the international partnership forged in cooperation with UNAIDS to combat AIDS in Africa.

Education as a means of developing of the human personality and strengthening respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms

• Emergency action in the field of education

In November 1998, an inter-agency mission was despatched to Brazzaville (Congo) to help the Government, in its efforts to rebuild the country, to determine its priority fields of action and draw up a short- and medium-term plan of action. In February 1999, an exploratory task force left for the Democratic Republic of the Congo to prepare the ground for possible future intervention in the country on the part of UNESCO. An aid package of US $100,000 has been granted to Sierra Leone in support of a programme geared to rebuilding the national education system. Other actions, concerning Guinea-Bissau and Angola, are in preparation, subject to funding.

• Regional programme for emergency education, communication and the Culture of Peace

In 1998, the Programme for Education for Emergencies and Reconstruction (PEER) underwent restructuring in order to strengthen UNESCO’s activities in the crisis-hit areas of Central Africa, the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes region. Retaining its mandate to deliver education to refugees and in emergency situations, the Programme has been equipped with operational capacities to enable it to promote the culture of peace and to support an independent press. Within that mandate, PEER has become involved in intense activity from the Great Lakes to the Horn of Africa. In Somalia, for instance (where UNESCO, in the absence of a central authority, has been appointed as the agency in charge of the entire education system), it runs educational projects fuelled by funding mobilized with the cooperation of the European Community, DANIDA, UNDP, UNICEF and a large number of NGOs at work in the country. Those projects cover education for refugees and displaced persons, supplying manuals and school textbooks throughout the country, teacher training, education for peace and civic education. In Rwanda, it has projects under way geared to education and the culture of peace. In Djibouti, UNESCO is operating a project financed by UNHCR to provide schooling for children in the country’s refugee camps. UNESCO’s contribution to the Programme for the 1998-1999 biennium has amounted to US $44,267. In May 1999, UNESCO and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) signed a cooperation agreement to provide emergency assistance for activities focusing on education, the culture of peace and communication . UNESCO-PEER mobilized US $3,201,198 worth of extrabudgetary funding for the 1998-1999 biennium. It is now awaiting approval and a signature from the European Commission (EC) Somalia to launch the latest CEPPES project and Phase II of the project on Civic Education for Peace and Good Governance in Somalia, with funds amounting to 2.5 million ECU (US $2.65 million). This will automatically increase the amount of extra funds mobilized by UNESCO-PEER for 1998-1999 to somewhere in the region of six million ECU (US $6.36 million).

• Education for a Culture of Peace

(Transdisciplinary Project: Towards a Culture of Peace)

• Education for Peace, Human Rights and Democracy

In Mali, UNESCO is running a programme to assist the Ministers in charge of education in the restructuring of the country’s education system. Within that framework, UNESCO and UNDP will support the Malian authorities in their efforts to incorporate human rights and peace education into primary and secondary school curricula. The teaching of the Convention on the Rights of the Child will be part of this scheme. Meanwhile, UNESCO is currently implementing a Human Rights and Democracy Education project in Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe with funding from extrabudgetary resources (DANIDA). The project’s main focus is on the development of human-rights educational materials and the training of trainers, educators, textbook writers and administrators. In 1998, the UNESCO Office in Burundi implemented a project to introduce human rights and peace into the country’s secondary-school curricula.

• UNESCO Associated Schools Project Network (ASPnet)

Out of a world total of some 5,600 schools in the 161 countries taking part in ASPnet, there are 1,200 schools in 38 countries in Africa. Four countries have joined ASPnet since the start of the 1998-1999 biennium: Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Rwanda and South Africa. Rwanda carried out several projects during the biennium, particularly in the field of education for human rights, tolerance and peace.

There have been three major ASPnet projects in Africa during the biennium: the UNESCO Peace Pack, the Transatlantic Slave Trade Project and the World Heritage Education Project.

(i) the UNESCO Peace Pack, which stems from a series of seven UNESCO Culture of Peace Children’s Festivals held in all ASPnet regions in 1995. In Africa, the Festival took place in Zimbabwe (August 1995) with children from eight countries participating. The Peace Pack contains a variety of resource materials designed for elementary-school teachers. It has been tested over the past two years in 26 African countries, mainly in Associated Schools. UNESCO will collect and analyse the results of this pilot phase towards the end of 1999;

(ii) the Transatlantic Slave Trade Education Project is an attempt to break the silence surrounding the transatlantic slave trade while forging new triangular links (educational, cultural and social) between ASPnet schools in Europe, Africa and the Americas/Caribbean. A key goal of the Project, which is an integral part of the Slave Route, is to promote mutual respect and intercultural dialogue between young people through increased awareness of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, its root causes, consequences and contributory factors. Among other activities, it will strive to develop new, effective, subject-specific teaching tools and organize a wide range of intercultural activities for young people from the three regions (including visits to historic sites linked to the slave trade). Schools in the following seven African countries will be taking part: Angola, Benin, Gambia, Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria and Senegal. A Subregional Workshop to Launch the ASPnet Transatlantic Slave Trade Education Project in Africa was held in Accra (Ghana) from 15 to 19 February 1999. The Task Force Meeting of the Transatlantic Slave Trade Education Project met in Dakar (Senegal) from 18 to 21 August 1999;

(iii) the World Heritage Educational Resource Kit for Teachers, entitled World Heritage in your hands, has been completed by the UNESCO Associated Schools Project Coordination Unit in cooperation with the World Heritage Centre, and distributed for trials and regional adaptation to UNESCO Associated Schools in 23 countries in Africa.

• Physical education and sport for peace

The Programme d’Appui aux Initiatives Locales (PAIL) has been launched in nine countries by a partnership involving those countries’ National Commissions, UNESCO Clubs and Ministries of Youth and Sport. The countries in question are: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Mozambique, Niger and Sao Tome and Principe. The aim of the Programme is to create youth and neighbourhood networks to foster community sports and physical activities. Meanwhile, the specialized sports federations and national public institutions of Côte d’Ivoire and Niger joined forces to organize a series of summer camps for boys and girls with and without disabilities (and treating both equally), aimed at giving young people an opportunity to ward off the boredom and idleness that usually tends to set in during school holidays.

• Linguistic diversity and multilingual education for peace

Within the framework of the LINGUAPAX Project, a range of actions were carried out on behalf of the African continent during the 1998-1999 biennium to promote a culture of peace through multilingual education and respect for linguistic diversity. These are as follows:

(i) the preparation and distribution to African teachers and teacher-trainers staff of nine technical guidebooks focusing on language policies and the teaching of languages in the educational context of multi-language African countries;

(ii) the LINGUAPAX VII seminar on National Languages for Peace in Africa, held in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) from 15 to 22 June 1999 and attended by some 50 participants from 11 African countries. The seminar, marking the launch of LINGUAPAX in Africa, served to drive home the importance of African languages in the continent’s progress towards peace and adopted a four-year plan of action geared to consolidating the LINGUAPAX Project’s position there.

Mobilizing commitments and partnerships for education for all in Africa

The following section covers the key activities carried out within the overall framework of Priority Africa and the United Nations System-Wide Special Initiative on Africa (UNSIA).

• Seventh Conference of Ministers of Education of African Member States (MINEDAF VII)

At the invitation of the Government of the Republic of South Africa, UNESCO organized the Seventh Conference of Ministers of Education of African Member States (MINEDAF VII) in Durban from 20 to 24 April 1998. The Conference, a milestone for education in Africa, revolved around the general theme, Life-long Education for All in Africa: What Strategies for the Twenty-first Century? It was attended by more than 500 participants, including 39 Ministers from 46 African Member States and representatives from United Nations system institutions, a range of IGOs and NGOs, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the Economic Commission for Africa. Most of the debate focused on the reforms needed for education to provide a means to respond to the aims and requirements of development. Also taking place during the Conference period were the second Regional Consultation of African NGOs, a meeting of the Southern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ) and a variety of workshops attended by teachers and journalists. MINEDAF VII concluded its work by adopting the Durban Statement of Commitment, which opened up new prospects for the development of education through the strengthening of African regional integration.

The Organization has been at pains to set the planned machinery in place for the follow-up to that Conference, namely, an Intergovernmental Committee whose secretariat is provided by UNESCO. Furthermore, the Director-General has appointed a special MINEDAF VII team composed of senior officials representing the various programme sectors, the Priority Africa Department, sections of the Education Sector and the UNESCO Offices in Dakar (Senegal), Harare (Zimbabwe) and Pretoria (South Africa). Its role is to:

(i) guarantee effective cooperation in the implementation of the Durban Statement recommendations;

(ii) integrate the priorities defined by the African Ministers of Education into document 30C/5;

(iii) promote cooperation between UNESCO and its partners to provide the follow-up to MINEDAF VII.

A MINEDAF VII follow-up and Durban Statement implementation unit has been set up within the UNESCO Pretoria Office (South Africa) to take charge, inter alia, of coordinating activities in the Africa region.

UNESCO has also set about the task of implementing regional plans such as the Decade of Education in Africa (1997-2006) proclaimed by OAU. For example, it has helped to draw up a Plan of Action for the Decade of Education (calling meetings of experts in Addis Ababa [Ethiopia] in January 1998 and Ouagadougou [Burkina Faso] in December 1998), is a member of its Steering Committee, and provided financial and technical assistance for the staging of the Conference of African Ministers of Education (COMEDAF I).

• Conference of African Ministers of Education (COMEDAF I)

The Ministerial Session of the Conference of African Ministers of Education (COMEDAF I) took place in Harare (Zimbabwe) on 18 and 19 March 1999, having been preceded by a preparatory meeting of experts from 15 to 17 March 1999. Twenty-nine countries attended, and the President of Zimbabwe was the guest of honour. Many representatives of international and non-governmental organizations also attended.

The Conference was a momentous event, the first of its kind in the history of OAU. The main objective was to work out a revised agenda on how to achieve education for all in the coming decade. The Conference adopted the Programme of Action for the Decade of Education, as well as the Kampala Declaration and a Platform of Action on the Empowerment of Women through functional literacy and the education of girls.

A small committee comprising six countries was constituted to formulate appropriate recommendations on the procedures and mechanisms for following up the implementation of the Programme of Action. A provisional Steering Committee was also set up, mainly for advocacy of the Decade and harmonization of its activities.

• The International Institute for Capacity-Building in Africa set up in Addis Ababa

The aim of the International Institute for Capacity-Building in Africa is to satisfy the demand to enhance the human resources and strengthen the capacities of African Member States in particular, and the developing world in general, in the fields of educational management, curriculum development, teacher training and distance education, with particular emphasis on the need to promote international solidarity in the production, sharing and dissemination of knowledge, ideas and experience among education authorities and other agents of change.

As such, the Institute’s mandate complies with the Durban Statement of Commitment, in which Ministers of Education of African Member States resolved to:

- implement the measures required for the creation and development of training infrastructures and centres for improving capacities and enhancing human resources in the field of education;

- tackle the challenges involved in providing access to education for all;

- assign the greatest priority to the role of the teacher;

- reaffirm the principle that it is the responsibility of governments to provide for the efficient, effective and wise management of their education systems.

The statutes of the Institute were adopted by the Executive Board at its 156th session (May-June 1999), and will be submitted for final approval to the General Conference at its 30th session (October-November 1999). The Institute will be allocated a budget of US $1.3 million under the regular budget for the 2000-2001 biennium.

The Institute agreed to associate with the Agency for Cultural and Technical Cooperation (ACTC) to hold a workshop which took place in Dakar (Senegal) from 24 to 26 March 1999 on innovative secondary school curricula in five French-speaking countries.

• Specific actions undertaken within the framework of the United Nations System-Wide Special Initiative on Africa (UNSIA)

UNESCO and the World Bank, as co-leaders for the education component under UNSIA, are responsible for working with countries to assist with the preparation of educational improvement and investment plans, and for working with other donors and international organizations to assist in the mobilization of resources for design and implementation. The education components under UNSIA include all aspects of education-sector activity, but with particular concern for accelerating and improving the distribution of basic education capacities of adequate quantity and quality. The World Bank has mobilized US $7 million through a trust fund set up in Norway to support UNSIA.

The Priority Africa Department, coordinator of the United Nations System-Wide Special Initiative on Africa at UNESCO, represents the Organization at the ACC Steering Committee, monitors progress made concerning the various components, and participates in the mobilization of support for UNSIA. As such, the Department presented a paper at an information meeting for delegates at the United Nations General Assembly in November 1998, and participated in the UNSIA exhibition in London in December 1998 as well as in inter-agency meetings on Health Reform (Cotonou, October 1998) and Poverty Reduction Through the Informal Sector (Banjul, December 1998).

The UNSIA Retreat in New York, organized by the ACC Steering Committee in February 1998, took stock of the progress achieved and the main constraints encountered since the launch of UNSIA, and proposed future directions. The ACC Steering Committee meeting in Geneva in March 1998 reiterated the Secretary-General’s commitment to the success of UNSIA and circulated a statement to that end: “The Special Initiative on Africa must succeed”. Mention should be made of the recommendation of the Committee for Programmes and Coordination (CPC) at its 38th session (June 1998) concerning UNESCO, UNICEF and the World Bank, and pertaining to the organization of a Technical Working Group to accelerate the implementation of education action plans for the 16 low primary enrolment countries.

Following a series of meetings designed to discuss strategies for collaboration on the Low Enrolment Countries (LEC) Plan of Action, a meeting of the UNSIA Technical Working Group on Basic Education took place in New York on 28 September 1998 between UNDP, UNESCO, UNICEF and the World Bank, the objective being to agree on practical ways and means to foster the implementation of UNSIA-LEC Strategy at both regional and country level. The particular focus of the Strategy is support for the development of cost-effective, sustainable education-sector development plans around which resources can be mobilized and inter-agency collaboration enhanced.

• UNESCO has worked jointly with UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF, WFP and the World Bank to support the Government of Burkina Faso in establishing a 10-year plan for basic education (1998-2007); in Angola, UNESCO is financing a project on Basic Education and Training of Out-of-School Youth (US $310,000); and the Government and UN System Joint Programme to promote basic education for all African children was officially launched in Madagascar in March 1999. The formulation phase financed by UNDP/SSPD (US $156,000) is under way. It will be carried out by a national and international multidisciplinary team, with UNESCO as the executing agency. In Ethiopia, UNESCO has participated in the formulation of the education-sector development programme, and is continuing to participate in the preparation/implementation activities of this programme. In Mali and Senegal, UNESCO has continued and built on its work to prepare a 10-year education-development programme. In Mozambique, the sector-development programme has been approved by the World Bank Board for a total sum of US $717.2 million, US $71 million of which is World Bank financing, and work is under way on the preparation of a 10-year sector programme in Niger. UNESCO has hosted an international round table on the Presidential Education Commission in Zimbabwe, organized jointly by the Government of Zimbabwe, the United Nations country team and UNESCO on 9-10 March 1998 to discuss the national education strategy and to mobilize donor support for its implementation. The Governments of Angola, Malawi and Uganda have also requested assistance to organize similar meetings.

• As part of a UNESCO-World Bank joint activity, a programme entitled Improving Learning: Perspectives for Primary Education in Rural Africa was launched with case studies in six African countries: Ethiopia, Uganda, Zambia, Mali, Guinea (Conakry) and Senegal. The programme, which aims at promoting strategies to improve learning achievement at primary level, pays special attention to children in rural areas. The case studies’ main objective was to identify the innovations and developments that have taken place in the areas of educational content, teacher development training, decentralization of educational management and evaluation. The results of these case studies were discussed at a Joint UNESCO-World Bank Seminar which was held in Zambia from 6 to 11 December 1998, offering the country teams an opportunity to exchange ideas and propose strategies for follow-up.

• The New Cotton Road, a pilot project launched in Mali in 1997 to mobilize support for the production and distribution of pedagogical material for schools by fostering a better understanding of schools in Africa among children in France, has been extended to Burkina Faso and Madagascar.

• In close cooperation with UNESCO, the World Bank has organized the following seminars and workshops in Africa during the 1998-1999 biennium:

- Seminar on “Problems and perspectives of the utilization of local languages as media of instruction”, Dar-Es-Salaam (Tanzania), 20-22 April 1998;

- Workshop on “Basic education and livelihood opportunities for illiterate and semi-literate young adults, especially young women in low enrolment countries - LECs”, Dakar (Senegal), 21-26 March 1998; Ndjamena (Chad), 15-19 March 1999;

- Workshop on “The role of communication in education and development”, Cotonou (Benin), 12-16 October 1998; Harare (Zimbabwe), 17 March 1999;

- Workshop on “The role of teachers in the acceleration of primary education”, Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), 18-21 March, 1998;

- Workshop on “Parents’ support to Education For All (EFA), especially the education of girls”, Paris (France), 15-17 September 1998;

- Workshop on “Teachers and development of schooling in certain countries”, Dakar (Senegal), 18-21 January 1998).

• Main achievements:

• Since the adoption of UNSIA, the entire part of UNESCO’s Programme and Budget for 1998-1999 (29C/5) devoted to Basic Education for All African Children mobilized more resources and coordinated actions. As to extrabudgetary-funded projects, totalling US $115.9 million, 38 per cent of this amount was devoted to education in 1998-1999 (see list in Annex V).

• Advisory and upstream-support services have been reinforced to help Members States elaborate national education policies and design national action plans for implementing policies for the reform and reconstruction of education. With regard to the development of education systems, assistance was provided for the design of projects, mobilization of internal and external resources and national capacity-building. Several countries are at work on, or have completed, the design of their sector-development programmes. Meanwhile, the participatory approach in the formulation of education policies and the design and implementation of programmes aimed at developing basic education is gaining ground. This is made obvious by the consultations with major education stakeholders (teachers’ unions, parents’ associations, the private sector, communities, etc.), which take place in the countries concerned, coupled with tendencies towards decentralization to promote local communities’ participation in the defining of education policies and efforts to accelerate the development of education for all. Awareness of the importance of improving the quality of education has also gained ground.

• Inter-agency cooperation has been reinforced: (i) UNDP has earmarked 60 per cent of its budget for the continent; (ii) UNESCO and UNICEF signed an agreement in February 1999 to reinforce their collaboration in basic education; (iii) the President of the World Bank, in a letter to the Director-General of UNESCO in March 1999, expressed his readiness to strengthen the joint focus of the two Organizations on basic education, proposing to build on existing partnerships. He has also informed the Director-General that the World Bank has launched work to assist countries participating in the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Debt Initiative (HIPC) to link debt relief to the countries’ enhanced ability to provide basic education and health services.

• Within the framework of efforts to develop new partnerships and mobilize funds for Africa, support has been provided for the Foundation for Education and Development in Africa (FEDA) whose President, Dr Cheick Modibo, is a current member of the International Committee for the Follow-up to Audience Africa and UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador; consultations are under way on the activities to be carried out in the field of education in Africa. Partnership with the International Foundation for Education and Self-Help (IFESH) and the PROSERA project has resulted in the construction and equipping of a number of schools. Elsewhere, the Priority Africa Department coordinated UNESCO’s participation at the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD II), which was held from 19 to 21 October 1999, and whose Programme of Action focuses on poverty alleviation in Africa and incorporation into the world economy.

Lessons learnt:

Activities undertaken within UNSIA in favour of basic education for all African children show that efficiency is far greater when the international institutions work together with the countries concerned. However, despite the valuable efforts made by countries and their partners for development, and some significant results achieved, low enrolment in primary education and low literacy rates in the 16 selected countries remain a matter of great concern. The proportion of out-of-school children (of school age) remains very high, while the schooling rate for girls remains very low in many countries. One of the root causes of this situation is the use of inadequate, inappropriate and often inefficient and costly strategies and modes of education delivery. This is, among others, mainly a result of the high cost of educational materials and services, difficult access to educational resources, a lack of clearly defined and coherent education and training policies and the weakness of the institutional capacity of a country effectively to deliver quality basic education for all.

It is expected that, following the UNSIA Joint Memorandum addressed by UNESCO, UNICEF, UNDP and the World Bank to their representatives, coordinators and task-team leaders, the United Nations system will be more effective in helping those countries to expand and improve their basic education.

Higher Education

• Within the framework of preparations for the World Conference on Higher Education (UNESCO Headquarters, 5-9 October 1998), a regional consultation was held from 1 to 4 April 1997 in Dakar (Senegal) and a document was published entitled Enseignement supérieur en Afrique: Réalisations, défis et perspectives. This meeting was followed by two further events:

• The World Conference on Higher Education chiefly sought to establish the underlying principles for in-depth reform of higher education systems at world level with a view to boosting their contribution to the advancement of sustainable human development and peace-building. It brought together more than 4,300 participants and addressed the following key themes: relevance, quality, management and finance, inter-university cooperation. Simultaneously, a series of round tables was organized to discuss such topics as follow-up to MINEDAF VII. The Conference adopted the World Declaration on Higher Education for the Twenty-first Century: Vision and Action and the Framework for Priority Action for Change and Development of Higher Education.

• Parallel to the World Conference on Higher Education, a special meeting of the Caucus of African Ministers of Education took place at UNESCO Headquarters on 9 October 1998. It was attended by 125 participants, including 35 Ministers of Education of African Member States, 24 African nations’ ambassadors to UNESCO and representatives of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) and several bilateral and multilateral organizations. Participants examined the various points raised in the report by the Chairperson of the intergovernmental follow-up committee set up to see through the implementation of the commitments made in Durban: new developments and initiatives since MINEDAF VII, the Intergovernmental Committee’s programme of work, and the OAU programme for implementing the Decade of Education in Africa (1997-2006). They also considered possible terms for cooperation between ADEA and the Intergovernmental Committee and the criteria which should govern the compilation of an inventory of African countries’ centres of excellence.

Following that meeting, UNESCO, in line with MINEDAF VII recommendations, established a network for African Ministers of Education as well as a fellowship bank designed to encourage cooperation among African universities and establishments of higher education.

• Within the framework of UNESCO programmes on regional cooperation, the Director-General granted a subvention of US $50,000 to the Conference of Rectors of Universities of French-speaking African countries and the Indian Ocean; and, within the framework of efforts to implement the plan for national reconstruction in Liberia, UNESCO granted a further subvention of US $100,000 to the Government of Liberia for the restoration of the University of Liberia’s Faculty of Science buildings and the equipping of its School of Medicine and Pharmacy. UNESCO-BREDA also organized a National Consultation on higher education in the capital, Monrovia, from 21 to 23 January 1999, which led to the publication of a report on the content of a new national higher-education policy. Elsewhere, in order to enable the Government of Gambia to respond to the urgent needs linked to its efforts to set up a university, the Director-General, during a visit to the country in February 1998, decided to grant it a subvention of US $100,000. In Togo, UNESCO-BREDA provided technical and financial assistance for the organization of a debate in September 1998 on the structures needed for the reorganization of the national higher education system; and in Tanzania, it participated in a feasibility study in cooperation with the Natural Sciences Sector with a view to establishing a university in Zanzibar. UNESCO-BREDA also organized five training workshops in university teaching: Ibadan (Nigeria), from 14 to 18 September 1998; Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire), from 10 to 14 May 1999; Eldoret (Kenya), from 18 to 22 May 1999; Maputo (Mozambique), from 14 to 18 June 1999; and Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), from 27 to 29 July 1999. These workshops enabled a guidebook on university education to be prepared and helped to raise awareness among the various partners as to the role of higher education and the issues involved.

• Within the framework of the UNITWIN and UNESCO Chairs Programme, 12 new UNESCO Chairs were established in the course of the 1998-1999 biennium (see list in Annex I). An international conference on the strengthening of cooperation between the Santander Group and UNESCO Chairs in Africa (Las Palmas, Spain, 15 April 1999) served to bolster the capacities of UNESCO Chairs and stimulated cooperation between them and the inter-university networks. UNESCO-BREDA has helped to strengthen the North and West Africa inter-university network on new information technology, notably by organizing a training workshop in Nouakchott (Mauritania) from 22 to 26 February 1999 on access to scientific and technological documentation. It has provided technical and/or financial assistance to:

It has become apparent that cooperation needs to be stepped up between the UNESCO Chairs and UNITWIN networks in order to secure smoother transfers and sharing of knowledge, skills and technologies.

• Within the framework of efforts to promote academic mobility, the TALMALI (Talents du Mali) Project has been launched to allow Mali expatriates to return to the country on a temporary basis in order to teach and/or supervise research work at the University of Mali. Similar sorts of initiatives should be encouraged. UNESCO-BREDA has provided intellectual and financial assistance for the organization of the following research-related workshops: an applied mathematics workshop in Yaoundé (Cameroon) in March 1998; the eighth University of Benin scientific gathering in Lomé (Togo) in May 1998; the 4th functional analysis and differential equation workshop in Accra (Ghana) in July 1998. The main aim of those workshops was to allow African researchers to break out of their isolation by giving them an opportunity to circulate and test their findings. Another workshop, held in Nairobi (Kenya) from 9 to 11 June 1999, offered training on syllabus accreditation and the processing of forms pertaining to recognition of higher-education studies and diplomas. It was attended by 15 study and diploma recognition department managers from five African countries.

• Activities undertaken by the International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) in the field of higher education have included: