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Letter Georges Bush
6th January 2003
President George W Bush
President, USA
The White House
Washington DC
United States of America
Dear President Bush
ANCEFA calls on the USA to ‘…leave no [African] child
behind..’ on Education For All (EFA)
We, members of civil society from 35 countries across sub-Saharan
Africa, under the umbrella of ANCEFA (Africa Network Campaign
on Education for All) are formally writing to express our disappointment
at the current international, and specifically US, response and
commitment to Africa’s education crisis. We also write to
express our wish that your passion for education, as articulated
so clearly in your election campaign, leaves no African child
behind in the pursuit of Education for All (EFA).
We applaud the growth of US Aid to developing countries of an
additional US$5 billion per year to fight poverty through the
Millennium Challenge Account. This is an important step in supporting
a few ‘high performing’ countries in the developing
world.
However, the commitments in Dakar, signed up to by 165 countries,
promised a global initiative which would address the Education
For All (EFA) needs of ALL developing countries with credible
national action plans.
In spite of the fact that millions of our children are out of
school (or sitting in unsafe classrooms of 170 pupils to one teacher)
and all actors (communities, governments, and citizens) are working
hard on the commitments in Dakar, there is no commitment from
the United States and the other G8 partners to a coordinated approach
to fund the gaps for most countries with credible plans and nothing
to help those without plans to get there. African civil society
perceives that the international community, led by the USA, has
backed out of its international commitment at Dakar and has pulled
the rug from under our feet.
Two years after Dakar, the UNESCO-commissioned Global Monitoring
Report ‘Is the World on Track?’ (UNESCO, November 2002)
indicates there is an emergency in Africa with two-thirds of African
countries in crisis and unlikely to achieve any of the Dakar EFA
goals.
Having examined existing international responses, including that
from the US (most especially after looking at the criteria of
the Millennium Challenge Account), it is our opinion that no more
than 10% of African countries will benefit. The initiative will
‘leave many countries behind’ and ‘most children
behind’ by completely missing the target of the countries
with the large populations of Africa’s estimated 50 million
uneducated children alone. Africa’s education crisis, committed
to by all so eloquently at Dakar in April 2000, can wait no longer
if the genuine development efforts of scores of countries are
to be realized.
Against this backdrop, and our understanding of your personal
(and wider national) commitment to education, we call on you to
go beyond the proposed Millennium Challenge Account, and to lead
the world in addressing the crisis of education in Africa across
the board by committing an additional US$1billion to the Education
For All (EFA) agenda through the Fast Track Initiative and other
mechanisms.
The opportunity which your impending trip to Africa in early
2003 offers must be used to understand the real magnitude of the
education crisis and emergency in Africa (compounded by the impact
of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, ongoing conflict, transition democracies
and the threat to world peace).
We humbly look forward to your urgent and positive action in
the light of the impending disaster in Africa if our genuine efforts
go unsupported.
Yours Sincerely,
Zambia National Education Coalition
Reseau Education Pour Tous Afrique Centrale (REPTAC/Cameroon)
Tanzania Education Network (TENMET)
Sebenta National Institute (Swaziland)
Rajab Kondo, TACESODE, Dar es Salam
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