I. General

1. UNESCO is the lead and cooperating agency responsible for the implementation for the three following components of the UNSIA: basic education for all African children, communications for peace-building and harnessing information technology for development.

The Priority Africa Department which is the coordinator for the UN System-wide Special Initiative on Africa at UNESCO, regardless of the activities mentioned in this report, represents the Organization at the ACC Steering Committee, monitors progress made concerning the different components, and participates in the mobilization of support for UNSIA.

As such, the Department: presented a paper at an information meeting for the delegates at the UN General Assembly, in November 1998, 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).

This Progress Report deals mainly with the development, and/or the follow up, of activities undertaken in 1998, that is to say the activities already mentioned in the previous reports, the last being April 1998.

2. Before reviewing these activities, reference should be made to the recommendation of the Committee for Programmes and Coordination (CPC) at its 38th Session (June 1998) concerning UNESCO, UNICEF and the World Bank relating to the organization of a technical working group to accelerate the implementation of education action plans for the 16 low primary enrolment countries.

3. Following a series of meetings designed to discuss strategies for collaboration on the “low enrolment countries (LEC) Plan of Action” - UNESCO and the World Bank (Sept. 1997), UNICEF and the World Bank (April 1998), the World Bank and UNESCO (May 1998), UNICEF and UNESCO (June 1998) - a meeting took place in New York on 28 September 1998 between UNDP, UNESCO, UNICEF and the World Bank with the following objective: to agree on practical ways and means to foster the implementation of UNSIA-LEC strategy at both regional and country level.

UNESCO’s subsequent activities took into account the elements on which agreements were made during the meeting.

 

II. Activities

A. Basic Education

Within the framework of the UNSIA, UNESCO has carried out the following:

4. Since the adoption of the UNSIA, the entire part of UNESCO’s Programme and Budget for 1998-1999 (29 C/5) devoted to “Basic Education for All African Children” mobilized more resources and coordinated actions. In this context, UNESCO, following the conclusions of the Seventh Conference of Ministers of Education of African Member States of UNESCO (MINEDAF VII), has taken since June 1998, concrete measures to help in implementing the “Statement of Commitment” adopted by African Ministers of Education, particularly for: (i) the establishment of a Secretariat in the UNESCO Office in Pretoria to assist the Intergovermental Committee on the follow up, and (ii) the establishment of a International Institute for Capacity Building, one of its basic goals being to contribute to extending and improving basic education to all African children.

5. More specifically, UNESCO has carried out the following:

In the field of educational policies, between June and December 1998, UNESCO has been working jointly, in Burkina Faso, with UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF, WFP and the World Bank to give support to the government in establishing its Ten Year Plan on “basic education for all” (1998-2007). These five UN organizations are fully engaged in the “Government and the UN System Joint Programme in Support of Basic Education for All” (1998-2002). UNESCO, together with UNDP and the World Bank intervened in Senegal in 1998 to help the government to prepare a Ten Year Programme which should contribute to mobilizing the support of donors at a consultative meeting shceduled for late 1998. The tasks relating to basic education were fully carried out but, due to some delays affecting the work on other parts of the education system, the Round Table could not be held. However, UNESCO in cooperation with UNDP, has continued to react positively to the request from the Department of Basic Education for technical assistance .

Finally, UNESCO is continuing to participate in the preparation/implementation activities in Ethiopia related to the Education Sector Development Programme, within the framework of UN system activities.

6. Under a UNESCO/World Bank joint activity, a programme for “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, aiming at promoting strategies to improve learning achievement at primary level, gives special attention to children in the rural areas. The programme started with case studies to identify innovations and developements which have taken place in the areas of education contents, teacher development training, decentralization of educational management and evaluation. The case studies have been completed and the results were presented and discussed at a Joint UNESCO/World Bank Seminar held in Zambia from 6 to 11 December 1998. It offered the country teams an opportunity to exchange ideas and to propose strategies for follow up.

7. Following the activities undertaken in Niger in 1995-1996, the New Cotton Road project has been launched with the objective of developing, in Burkina Faso and Madagascar, learning charts made of cotton cloth. UNDP has expressed the willingness to integrate this innovation in the efforts made in the framework of the National Education Reform programmes.

8. UNESCO has already called the attention of its UNSIA partners to the importance of developing joint activities regarding pre-school education - as part of Basic Education for All African Children - as well as special needs in education.

With regard to Early Childhood and Family Education, UNESCO, in its efforts to strengthen national and regional capacities in Africa in the areas of research, training and programming activities, is implementing three projects: (i) the “Clos d’Enfants” project in cooperation with Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali and Senegal. The main objective of the project is to mobilize women to create innovative early childhood structures; (ii) a project on Early Childhood Resources Centre for Francophone Africa (Mali); (iii) a project on Early Childhood Francophone African Network with Burkina Faso, Chad, Guinea, Niger and Senegal.

9. Concerning special needs in education, UNESCO’s project “Inclusive and Community Support Programme” (Phase II, 1998-1999), aims at improving access to schools and quality education for children, youth and adults with special education needs, seeking to ensure their inclusion in the regular education system. Small initiatives at the national level are supported to enable countries to gain experience in inclusive education.

The project which involves Burkina Faso, Guinea (Conakry) and Mali, is supported by Denmark, Norway and Finland. A separate initiative funded by Portugal provided support to Angola, Guinea Bissau and Mozambique among other countries.

10. The activities undertaken within the UNSIA in favour of basic education for all African children show that efficiency is much higher when the international institutions work together with the countries concerned. However, despite the valuable effort deployed by countries and their partners for development, and some significant results achieved, the low enrolment in primary education and the low literacy rate in the sixteen (16) selected countries remains a great matter of concern. The proportion of out-of-school-age population remains very high, while the schooling rate for girls remains low in many countries.

One of the main causes of the situation is the use of inadequate, inappropriate and often inefficient and costly strategies and modalities for education delivery. This is mainly a result of, among others, the high costs of educational materials and services, the difficult access to educational resources, the lack of very clearly defined and coherent education and training policies, the weakness of the institutional capacity of a country to effectively deliver a 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 UN system will be more and more effective in helping the above countries to expand and improve their basic education.

The Government and UN System Joint Programme to promote basic education for all African children in Madagascar has been officially launched in March 1999. The formulation phase financed by UNDP/SPPD funds ($156.000) is midway and will be carried out by a national and international multidisciplinary team with UNESCO as the executing agency.

B. Communications for Peace-building

11. UNESCO is the lead agency for the implementation of component 1c of the UN System-wide Special Initiative on Africa “Peace-building, conflict resolution and national reconciliation: communications for peace-building”. In its last report, UNESCO mentioned inter alia, the organization of an inter agency meeting in November 1996 at UNESCO Headquarters and of a regional consultative meeting in Addis Ababa from 23 to 25 June 1997. The objectives of both meetings were to recommend strategies for raising awareness through the use of media and promote networking among organizations and agencies as well as to undertake national case studies in selected areas of activity.

12. UNESCO and the organizations represented at the last meeting agreed to continue to mobilize potential partners who are not aware of this specific component of UNSIA, directly and through the Organization of African Unity, in order to gain the commitment from African governments on their willingness to support and participate in implementing the action. It was also recommended that the UN system establish sub-regional press centres for the dissemination of information on peace-building initiatives. Since these two meetings, UNESCO has carried out studies on communications and peace-building in Burundi, Ethiopia, Liberia and Mali. National workshops were also organized on the same theme in Ethiopia, Liberia and Mali during which the findings from the studies were discussed and recommendations made for formulating national plans of action for using communications fro peace-building. The conceptual framework and strategy document on “communications for peace-building” was also finalised and is due to be published by mid-1999.

13. Also during the period, a $1 million project proposal was prepared and submitted for funding to the UN Funds for International Partnerships and the UN Foundation Inc on conflict prevention and peace-building - through communication media - for sustainable development in Sub-Saharan African countries. The project is designed to promote, through communication media, conflict prevention, peace-building and the creation of an environment conducive to sustainable development initially in five Sub-Saharan African countries (Burundi, Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Liberia and Mali).

It is relevant to note here that lack of funds has considerably slowed down the development of the component. Nevertheless, UNESCO expects to launch the project implementation in the year 2000 under the UNESCO/DANIDA Funds-in-Trust Co-operation.

C. Harnessing information technology for development

14. Since the last report, a series of activities have been undertaken by UNESCO in this field. The two multi-purpose community telecentre pilot projects in Mali and Uganda mentioned in that report are under way with DANIDA support, while the planning for the other three projects in Benin, Mozambique and Tanzania has been finalized for implementation in early 1999.

15. As regards networking, sub-regional training groupes on networking were organized in Bulawayo, (Zimbabwe, August 1998) in Libreville (Gabon, October 1998) and in Niamey (Niger, November 1998) the latter two under the aegis of the Institut Africain d’Informatique. A sub-regional Internet training course for Eastern Africa is planned in August 1999 in Nairobi in cooperation with the African Regional Advanced Level Training Institute (AFRALTI) and ECA. UNESCO has extended its efforts aiming at the development of training of trainers in the field of informatics and telematics to assist secondary-level informatics teachers. A second pilot project on “Creating learning networks for African teachers” has been initiated in Senegal and a contract has been established to develop a Website of the fifty best African Websites in UNESCO’s fields of competence.

Forty One African Member States are now participating in the Regional Informatics Network for Africa (RINAF), which provides a framework for promoting telematics for development in Africa in support of the African Information Society Initiative (AISI) and the UN System-wide Special Initiative for Africa (UNSIA). UNESCO sponsored a “RINAF Day” and a RINAF Coordinators’ meeting in Dakar on 16-17 October 1998 in conjunction with the 4th African Conference on Research in Computer Science (CARI’98).

16. UNESCO and the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) have provided assitance to the Rwandan Authorities in the organization of a National Workshop on telematics policies (30 November-4 December 1998). Finally it should be mentioned that the electronic anthology for the Sahel has been completed.

The first edition of the “SAHEL point DOC” CD/ROM has been published by UNESCO within the Publica series of electronic documentary heritage and is available free of charge. This electronic anthology related to the development of the Sahel zone, undertaken with the African Information Society Initiative (AISI), includes more than 200 texts in the public domain or distributed with authorization in the areas of agriculture, fishing and husbandry; environment, water and energy; culture, information and communication. DANIDA funds-in-trust ($167,500) have been obtained to continue this project in the period 1999-2001, in order to produce the second version of “SAHEL point DOC” and an equivalent CD/ROM for East Africa; to install and evaluate their use in 20 pilot public libraries in the two sub-regions; and to establish sustainable mechanisms for updating and dissemination of these products, drawing on the active participation of governments, public libraries and civil society organizations.