The international goal of Education For All (EFA) was given a new vitality at the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal, in April 2000. The Dakar Framework for Action, adopted by the Forum, laid out a set of goals and strategies for achieving EFA. Specifically, it defined six goals for the international community to achieve by 2015. It also reaffirmed the right to education as a fundamental human right.

Five years after the Dakar Forum, it seems imperative to look back at educational development and change in Africa. Data is being collected and analyzed. National, regional and sub-regional status reports are being put together. National EFA plans have started to be implemented. The year 2005 provides a unique opportunity to assess the extent to which progress is being made on the Dakar commitments; to review successful policies and practices; to review, in particular, the overall performance in achieving universal completion of primary schooling; to identify existing problems and constraints while proposing interventions that have been proven to work, with a view to moving forward the educational development of the continent.

For more information visit www.dakar.unesco.org/news/en05/260505_EFA_Dakar5.shtml.