Nov 3rd, 2011 2:29 PM UTC
By Hallie Stevens
Students in Mali. Photo credit: All West Africa
Mali is not the first country that comes up when people describe educational progress sub-Saharan Africa. Ranked as one of the top 25 poorest nations on earth, improvements do not come easily. Yet despite financial issues, Mali has made promising strides in education in the last 10 years. The government of Mali is working with partners to improve the quality of basic and secondary education by training teachers, providing textbooks and other learning materials, installing dedicated reading areas inside classrooms, and transferring direct funds to school to acquire materials locally.
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Oct 31st, 2011 9:53 AM UTC
By Hallie Stevens
Today, the world’s population reached 7 billion. As the world only hit six billion in 1999, that’s the fastest increase in our population ever. If you were to start counting to 7 billion out loud, it would take you 200 years to finish. The global population is growing at extreme rates, with five births every second, but only two deaths. Of all seven continents, Africa has seen the fastest population growth, and is home to more than 1 billion people with an expected population of more than 2 billion by 2050.
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Oct 16th, 2011 9:16 AM UTC
By Hallie Stevens
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This week, the World Food Prize Foundation awarded its annual prize to former Presidents John Agyekum Kufuor of Ghana and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil. The foundation hosts the award ceremony annually in Des Moines, Iowa, and celebrates individuals who advance human development by improving the quality, quantity or availability of food in the world. Attended by the most influential people in the food and agriculture sphere — including governmental leaders, policy makers, CEOs, NGOs, scientific and academic experts, development leaders, corporate executives and young leaders from across the globe — this year marks a celebration of Ghana and Brazil’s incredible achievements in fighting hunger and poverty.
Under the leadership of President Kufuor, Ghana has become the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to reach the first Millennium Development Goal, and has cut the number of people suffering from hunger and extreme poverty in half. The poverty rate has dropped from 51.7 percent in 1991 to 25.5 percent in 2008, and the hunger rate has fallen from 34 percent in 1990 to 9 percent in 2004. President Kufuor has created incentives in the agricultural sector and has educated farmers about better techniques. The results are amazing, with a record double rate of production between 2002 and 2005. In addition, he has founded the Ghana School Feeding Program, providing every school child with a daily locally-grown meal. In addition to combating malnutrition and hunger, the program also works as an incentive to improve school attendance, and currently, 1.04 million children in Ghana benefit from the initiative.
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Oct 6th, 2011 10:27 AM UTC
By Hallie Stevens
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Please give a warm welcome to Hallie Stevens, ONE’s new policy intern based in Washington, D.C. This is her first blog post, and we are excited to have her on board!
Rwandan schoolgirls.
Rwanda’s transformed education system is one of the greatest success stories to come out of Africa in the last decade. Yet oftentimes, Rwanda is only remembered for its genocide, and rarely for the incredible progress and developments that it has made since then. Rwanda today has completely rebuilt its educational system so that every child in Rwanda has the chance at primary education.
After the death of 80 percent of Rwanda’s intellectuals in the genocide, Rwanda was faced with rebuilding and enhancing their educational system. Rwanda initially implemented a six-year plan to achieve universal primary education (UPE), but because of rapid progress in the first few years, they expanded it into a nine-year plan called the Nine-Year Basic Education Program. This education sector plan was approved by the Education for All-Fast Track Initiative (EFA FTI), known today as the Global Partnership for Education (GPE). The Global Partnership is a multilateral organization that invests in developing countries with promising education sector plans. Thanks to government prioritization, with support from the Global Partnership, today 97 percent of Rwandan children enter primary school.
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