The UNESCO/DANIDA BLM Initiative has its origins in the International Consultative Forum on Education for All, established as part of the follow-up to the World Conference on Education for All held in Jomtien, Thailand in 1990.

The Organization’s concern for book issues and book development largely predates the Education for All movement, reaching as far back as the 1950s when the General Conference of UNESCO underscored the importance of books as a motor for general development by passing the Florence Agreement and the Universal Copyright Convention.

UNESCO’s involvement has however accelerated in recent years in pursuit of the Jomtien goal of improving the quality of education, which itself stresses access to teaching and learning materials, based on a broad-based learner-centred curricula, as a prerequisite to learning achievement.

Phase I
Preparatory phase (1993 - 1996)

Drawing on the experience gained in many donor-funded textbook projects, during Phase I, a technical consultation was convened to prepare a conceptual framework and global strategy for book provision projects. This consultation concluded that the inadequate performance of textbook projects was caused, to a great extent, by the lack of recognition of the industrial, professional and economic aspects of book provision in project design and by a general absence of national book policies.

An Analytic Survey of Basic Learning Materials was subsequently carried out, the results of which fed into the development of a manual entitled From Plan to Print: A Guide to Sustainable Book Provision , which was printed and distributed during Phase II. Aimed primarily at policy makers and educational planners, the handbook provides a constructive and challenging basis for the discussion of the educational choices involved in textbook provision. It is used as one of the key resource materials in the technical assistance component of the second phase of the BLM Initiative.

Phase II
Operational phase (1996 - 2000)

From October 1996 onwards, the BLM Initiative adopted a book sector approach, putting emphasis on the strengthening of planning and decision-making mechanisms, the development of the book sector as an industry, as well as the promotion of interaction between different players in the book chain , that is to say from educational planners and curriculum developers to publishers, printers and all those responsible for delivering textbooks and other learning materials to schools.

Justification

Countries engaged in the development of long-term national textbook strategies require information and analysis of issues related to the book sector as well as technical support in the form of training.

Many countries lack this range of technical expertise and they do not always have the resources to develop this expertise in a short-term perspective. The BLM Initiative provides such technical support and in doing so, contributes to improvements in the national capacity for preparing, producing and distributing books not only to the education sector (formal), but to all readers (non-formal).