MADAGASCAR
Meeting of Education For All (EFA) Partners on the draft Regional
Action Plan to follow-up on EFA in sub Saharan Africa
Report
The
UNESCO Regional office in Dakar (BREDA) convened a meeting of EFA
Sponsors to organise the co-ordinated follow-up action and support
to Education For All at the level of the Africa region. The meeting
took place on 5th May 2001 at Antananarivo (Madagascar) on the fringes
of the Steering Committee meeting of the Association for Development
of Education in Africa (ADEA). It was widened to include representatives
of major partners in education in Africa and was attended by the
following key figures:
Mrs. Aïcha Bah Diallo UNESCO,
Paris Mr. Armoogum Parsuramen UNESCO / BREDA
Mr. Birger Fredriksen World Bank, Washington
Mrs. Mary J. Pegozzi UNICEF, New York
Mrs. Changu Mannathoko UNICEF, Nairobi
Mrs. Mieko Yabuta UNFPA, Madagascar
Mr. Marcel Diouf OAU, Addis Abeba
Mr. Sibry Tapsoba ADB, Abidjan Mrs.
Adama Ouane IUE, Hamburg
Mrs. Jeannette Vogelaar Dutch Cooperation
Mr. Richard Sack ADEA
Mr. Ahlin Byll-Cataria ADEAµ
Mr. Pape Momar Sow Consultant
Mr. Aimé Damiba Consultant
Introductory Remarks
After welcoming the participants and thanking them for being present,
Mr. A. Parsuramen, Chairman of the meeting, recalled the aims of
the meeting, which were to:
- Contribute
towards strengthening the dialogue amongst the EFA Movement's
partners in following-up on the Dakar World Forum's recommendations
in the Africa region.
-
Involve the different partners in the process of drawing up a
regional action plan to follow up on and support Education For
All in the region; and
- Arrive
to a consensus on the ways and means of implementing this action
plan.
He
asserted that, within the mandate of UNESCO, BREDA has pledged to
foster synergies among all the partners of Education For All in
Africa through concerted action. Since Dakar 2000, several actions
have been undertaken.
Activities
undertaken by the different partners within the framework of the
Dakar follow-up
African Development Bank
Development
of a policy that focusing more on the objectives of Education For
All, with three new major thrusts:
-
Larger incorporation of substantive components (quality) in addition
to the infrastructural dimensions that have thus far dominated
the Bank's interventions;
- More
appeals for community-level participation in the programmes supported;
-
Increased cooperation with other donors.
Two
priority actions are to be noted for the time being:
- Initiatives
in the field of literacy;
- maintenance
of educational infrastructure.
UNFPA
As
a follow up to the World Forum, FNUAP has worked to:
- Improving
the quality of education through population and family life projects,
which, within the formal education systems, focus on widening
the use of new curricula and the strengthening of the capacities
of educational staff;
- Promoting
projects that directly or indirectly facilitate the achievement
of Education For All (e.g., health and population education);
- Advocating
EFA more vigorously before decision makers, communities and parents;
-
Supporting at national level, the formulation of national Education
for All action plans;
- Promoting
inter-agency cooperation.
UNICEF
Mandate is given to all of those who, in their countries are responsible
for education, to support any action favoring the Education For
All program, especially in terms of quality (e.g., setting up of
child-centered schools),
- Gathering
of information in each of the sub regional offices on the progress
made in organizing and preparing Education For All action plans,
- Support
for implementation of the FRESH initiative,
- Support
for initiatives involving early childhood development,
- Support
for programmes in emergency zones in collaboration with the HCR
and UNESCO
-
Support for education of adolescents in fields involving the acquisition
of life skills.
UNICEF's priority interventions include: early childhood development,
gender-sensitive education, protection of childhood, and acquisition
of life skills for adolescents, AIDS education
Organisation
of African Unity
There is a convergence between the Decade of Education launched
by the OAU and Education for All. As a result, the OAU is endeavouring
to mobilise social and political support in favour of Education
For All.
The organization is also working to offset the gap in information
regarding EFA among the sub regional organisations.
Specialised
UNESCO Institutes
The
UNESCO Institute for Education (IUE) in Hamburg, on behalf of UNESCO's
specialised institutes (IBE, IIEP, IICBA) is committed to:
- Supporting
capacity building;
- Developing
an appropriate information and documentation system;
-
Advocating support to Education For All so that it is not just
an empty slogan and to ensure that the approach adopted is more
holistic and that there is an exchange of good practices between
the different countries.
Dutch Cooperation
Like
many bilateral partners, the Dutch Cooperation has:
- Increased
its budget for assistance to countries;
-
Supported coordination between the different bilateral partners
in countries that benefit from its aid;
- Supported
civil society through certain Dutch non-governmental organisations;
Backed multilateral education support networks like ADEA
World
Bank
The
World Bank, in keeping with its past commitments, continues to support
the Education for All process through the country programmes. It
continues to give top priority to basic education, both by helping
countries develop education sector development programmes that give
high priority to education EFA (including adult literacy and ECD),
and by helping countries mobilize external financing in favor of
such programmes. Further, considerable effort has been put into
ensuring that a high proportion of the savings on debt payments
under the HIPC initiative is earmarked for basic education (e.g.,
on average for African countries which so far have been granted
debt relief, 40% of the savings have been earmarked for education).
Other
World Bank support include:
- The
possibilities offered by the debt cancellation (HPIC);
- The
need to strengthen the negotiating capacities of the Ministries
of Education vis-à-vis the Finance Ministries;
- The
importance given to communication in education;
-
The benefits of having a basic understanding of education in each
country;
- the
necessary improvement in the ability of countries to introduce
reforms in education;
- The
increasing interest in adult literacy, early childhood development
and civic education.
Association for the development of Education in Africa (ADEA)
On the basis of its comparative advantages in terms of networking
and its existing working groups, ADEA wishes to contribute to the
follow-up of Dakar through:
-
A greater mobilization of its working groups as a support network
for Education for All,
- The
organization of national symposia to bring the working groups
up to date with the Education for All national programmes.
BREDA
BREDA's actions include:
- Increase
in the budget to support Education for All in Africa;
- Drawing
up of a draft action plan for the follow-up on the Dakar Forum;
- Drafting
of MOU among partners at country level to provide support for
the national Education for All action plans.
-
Setting up of cooperation networks with partners and specialised
institutions and national EFA coordinators;
-
Finalisation of databases on resource persons and centres of excellence.
Draft Regional Action Plan for follow-up of the World Forum on
Education for All
The
partners lauded the initiative to draw up a regional action plan
for follow-up of Education for All as that responded to a need felt
at the African regional level. Following an examination of the draft
regional action plan, suggestions were made that supplemented the
written comments that BREDA had already received. The following
is a summary of the main points:
-
To simplify the document, it was agreed to focus on two major
aspects - follow-up of the progress made in all aspects of basic
education and advocating for EFA at regional and international
levels.
-
The plan could, in an initial phase, seek to implement certain
limited and feasible actions especially with regard to capitalisation
and exchange of knowledge and experiences among countries and
different regions. Bearing in mind the principle of a modular
approach, the other components of the draft regional plan as well
as other areas could be reconsidered depending on the requirements
during the process of implementation.
- The
greater the number of actions at national level, the better it
would be, as it was difficult for some of the partners (banks)
to intervene at regional level.
- As
far as follow-up on progress was concerned, strategic interventions
were recommended as was the categorisation of countries based
on whether they had problems in drawing up national plans, on
the level of education and literacy as also on the gender disparities.
Conflicts, AIDS or any stumbling blocks in general were some of
the other possible criteria recommended.
- There
was a need to clarify the contributions expected from the other
partners in implementing the regional plan.
-
It was necessary to simplify as much as possible the mechanisms
for cooperation and to be as economical as possible in the case
of unavoidable meetings.
- It
was necessary to involve the countries in the finalisation of
the regional plan document. A meeting of the representatives (coordinators)
of the EFA regional working groups should be held at the latest
by the end of June.
-
It was necessary to identify and incorporate in the document,
mechanisms for follow-up and evaluation of the regional action
plan.
Conclusions
BREDA expressed its satisfaction over the outcome of the proceedings
and pledged to incorporate the different recommendations made by
the participants and to consult all the relevant players so as to
produce a consensual document at the earliest. Once the consultations
with the coordinators of the national forums and the organisations
representing civil society were over, all arrangements would be
made to submit the documents to the next meeting of the African
Ministers of Education.
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