News & Events

Zambia launches the End Learning Poverty for All in Africa Campaign “Read, Write, Count: Foundation4Life”

The Republic of Zambia officially launched the End Learning Poverty for All in Africa (ELPAf) Campaign in Lusaka.  The country becomes the first to launch this continental campaign, focusing on the urgent need for political leaders, policymakers, development partners, and communities to take action to address the issue of ending learning poverty among school-going children in Africa. The campaign aims to increase the number of children who can read, write, and perform basic math by the age of 10, ensuring that every child in Africa has access to quality foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) skills by 2035.

Officially launched at the African Union Conference on Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) in September 2024, in partnership with UNICEF, under the theme “Read, Write, Count Foundation4Life”, the ELPAf campaign is a continent-wide initiative to mobilise resources, expertise, and political will to tackle the learning crisis by enhancing the foundational learning provision across Africa. The campaign is also contributing to achieving the objective of the Continental Education Strategy for Africa (CESA), which aims to expand cost-effective approaches to improve early childhood education and foundational learning, leading to quality basic education.

Speaking on behalf of the President of the Republic of Zambia, His Excellency Hakainde Hichilema, Hon. Douglas Syakalima, Minister of Education of the Republic of Zambia, highlighted that, “For Zambia, the launch of the end learning poverty campaign signifies the importance we place as a country on foundational learning and our commitment to recovering and accelerating education.  This new campaign we are launching is aimed at spotlighting deficits in literacy and spurring action to ensure that all children acquire literacy, numeracy and social and emotional skills.”