World Bank hosts 3rd Africa Region Education Capacity Development Workshop Country Leadership and Implementation for Results in the EFA-FTI Partnership

Contacts:
In Washington: Ms. Cristina Isabel Panasco Santos
cpanascosantos@worldbank.org 

In Mauritius : M. Constantine Chikosi
cchikosi@worldbank.org

Port Louis , November 13, 2008 -- The Education for All Fast Track Initiative (EFA-FTI) is a global partnership between donors and developing countries to ensure accelerated progress toward the Millennium Development Goal of achieving universal primary education. In its contribution to the agenda of the partnership, of which it is a member, from December 1 – 5, the World Bank will host the Third Africa Region Education Capacity Development Workshop ‘Country Leadership and Implementation for Results in the EFA-FTI Partnership’, in Mauritius, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Culture and Human Resources of Mauritius.

This workshop is the third in the series. The first two workshops took place in Cape Town, South Africa, in July 2007, and Tunis, Tunisia, in December 2007. These workshops each gathered over 80 participants from Lesotho, Burundi, Sierra Leone, Zambia, Uganda, Madagascar; and Chad; Cameroon, Malawi, Benin, Ghana, Mali, Liberia, and Mauritania, respectively. The workshop series aims to foster country leadership and to create a forum for national teams and donors to interact and share knowledge and experiences in the design, funding and implementation of sustainable and successful education sector plans.

Over 80 participants including five senior officials from the Ministry of Education and two donor representatives from seven Sub-Saharan African countries: Benin, Guinea, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mali, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone,as well as members of the EFA-FTI Secretariat, staff from headquarters of donor agencies, representatives of the Mauritian Ministry of Education, Culture and Human Resources, several resource persons and World Bank staff are expected at the December workshop. The Minister of Education, Culture and Human Resources of Mauritius will deliver opening remarks.

Background: According to UNESCO’s Education for All Monitoring Report 2008, enrollment increased 36 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa between 1999 and 2005. In the same period, expenditure with education increased over five percent annually, and countries like Ghana, Senegal, Malawi, Mauritania and Uganda achieved gender parity. Nonetheless, and in spite of the progress made, important challenges remain. According to the Report, the Education for All Development Index (EDI), calculated for 129 countries, shows that 25 are far from achieving EFA. About two-thirds of these are in sub-Saharan Africa. Today, about 60 countries, among them more than 30 from Sub-Saharan Africa, are either participating or have expressed interest in joining the FTI. The partnership supports the countries in designing and implementing sound and sustainable education sector plans. This workshop strives to respond to the need to create knowledge sharing and learning networks among countries that have already been endorsed by the EFA-FTI, to ensure that they are better equipped to respond to the challenges and opportunities they face in working towards achieving the MDGs for education.