KIX Africa 19

Hub Overview

A key component of KIX is a knowledge sharing and exchange function, where country representatives come together to share information, innovation, and best practices related to education policy and programming and to inform knowledge gaps and policy priorities. Four regional hubs act as knowledge brokering units for KIX. This page provides information on the hub that primarily oversees activities in East, South and West Africa.

Consortia:

UNESCO – International Institute for Capacity Building in Africa

UNICEF-Eastern and Southern Africa

African Union

Region:

East, Southern and West Africa

Countries:

Eritrea,

Eswatini,

Ethiopia,

Gambia,

Ghana,

Kenya,

Lesotho,

Liberia,

Malawi,

Mozambique,

Nigeria,

Rwanda,

Sierra Leone,

Somalia,

South Sudan,

Tanzania,

Uganda,

Zambia,

Zimbabwe

Hub Webpage:

KIX Africa 19

About the Hub

The KIX Africa 19 hub facilitates cross-country knowledge exchange and mobilization, learning, synthesis, and collaboration among national education stakeholders in 18 Global Partnership for Education partner countries in eastern, southern, and western Africa. The hub functions as a regional forum within KIX.

KIX Africa 19 manages the hub that oversees activities in 18 Global Partnership for Education partner countries, primarily in East, South and West Africa. It is a consortium comprised of three organizations:

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) – International Institute for Capacity Building in Africa, which promotes international collaboration in education, sciences, and culture to increase universal respect for justice, the rule of law, and human rights, along with fundamental freedoms proclaimed in the United Nations Charter.
United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) – Eastern and Southern Africa, which provides humanitarian and developmental aid to children around the world.
African Union, which is made up of 55 member states that encompass the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA). ADEA, a pan-African institution built on partnerships between African ministries of education and training and their technical and external partners, aims to act as a catalyst for reforms and promising policies and practices by pooling ideas, experiences, lessons learned, and knowledge.

Approach

The hub will address challenges faced by countries in sub-Saharan Africa in terms of achieving quality, inclusive, and equitable education for social transformation and development. A systemic approach will be applied that includes:

Engaging country partners to strengthen national education systems through participation in the hub.
Setting a regionally specific knowledge and innovation agenda that informs knowledge generation and sharing activities, analysis, and use of data and evidence in policy.
Strengthening the capacity of country partners to generate information and research, translate policies into practice, and develop innovative strategies to accelerate education progress.
Strengthening strategies and implementing activities to address gender and equity in the region.

About the Region

Children’s access to education in sub-Saharan Africa had increased from 59% to 78% over the past decade, but these positive results are being affected by the temporary closure of most education systems due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Learning achievement and quality of education remain alarmingly low, while improvements in access to education are also declining. Many countries face enormous challenges around teacher recruitment, management and professional development, enrolment at pre-primary and secondary levels, gender equity, and quality of learning processes and outcomes. These issues have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has strained education systems.

Africa’s education ambitions cannot be realized without building effective partnerships and fostering harmonized approaches to integrating Sustainable Development Goal 4 (ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all) into national education policies and strategies. This ambition requires innovation because of the scale, diversity, and rapidly changing educational needs amidst high rates of population growth and unemployment in most sub-Saharan African countries.