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Education in Conditions of Crisis and Post-Conflict

27 May 2004

Education ministers and senior officials from 22 Sub-Saharan African countries, including 12 Commonwealth members, will meet in Mombasa, Kenya, from 2 to 4 June 2004 to explore the challenges encountered in seeking to achieve education for all, and specifically universal primary education, in conditions of civil strife, conflict and environmental crisis.

Representatives from Botswana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Uganda and Zanzibar, United Republic of Tanzania, will meet with their education peers from Benin, Burundi, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Guinea Bissau, Guinea Conakry, Rwanda and Sudan to foster awareness and commitment on the part of key actors with respect to the educational challenges arising from crisis and post-conflict circumstances in Africa.

Hosted by the Minister of Education of Kenya, Professor George Saitoti, the conference is organised and co-ordinated by the Commonwealth Secretariat in conjunction with the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA). It also has the support of UNESCO, UNICEF, the World Bank and the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies, which will be making presentations on the impact of their work.

Participants are expected to share what has been learned from the education strategies, programmes and projects developed in conflict situations, from the standpoint of both national policy and external aid, and to promote partnerships in analytical work, capacity-building, financing and project development.

Since April 2002, when the ADEA last met in Chantilly, France, African ministers of education have called for such a consultation as it was noted that between 1998 and 2002 there had been 36 major armed conflicts in the world, of which more than one-third were in Africa. Roli Degazon-Johnson, Chief Programme Officer in the Education Section of the Commonwealth Secretariat, said, "The challenges of delivering education for all in such conditions, aggravated by the impact of environmental crises including drought, famine and floods, are great. Given that 5 million of the 10 million refugees worldwide are in Africa, countries which may not have experienced these crises or conflict conditions themselves are obliged to address the provision of education for the children of refugees from other countries."