Partnerships for Capacity Building and Quality ... - ADEA

the expected objectives. This has lead to vital partnerships between the state andcivil society, which is the source of new dynamics of social mobilization, newcommitments and increased potential for resources and innovations in favour ofthe expansion and renovation of education.Non-Governmental Organizations, in close contact with grass roots communities,are very active in literacy training and the non-formal education sector.The private sector is developing at all levels of the system, and especially insecondary and higher education. Local communities and grass roots organizationsare getting ready to put their improved skills into practice and take chargeof education. Progressively, societies are claiming ownership of education andactively participating in its development. However, we need to strengthen thepartnerships being formed at the national level by giving the actors the necessaryinstruments of regular meetings, exchanges, and dialogues in order to overcomesources of mistrust and promote trusting relationships while ensuring anoptimal distribution of roles and responsibilities on the basis of authority andskills and developing and supporting all partners’ organizational andimplementational skills.Throughout the continent, a number of initiatives have also been undertakento organize cooperation and exchange networks. At the initiative of theSégou Perspectives Observatory (SPO), OAU declared 1996 the Year of Educationin Africa and 1997-2006 the Decade of Education in order to engage Africancountries, governments and societies in new continental dynamics of strongmobilization in favour of schooling, literacy and training.The Bureau africain des sciences de l’éducation (BASE, or African bureaufor Education Science), the Centre régional pour l’éducation des adultes etl’alphabétisarion? en Afrique (CREAA, or Regional centre for adult educationand literacy training in Africa), the Ségou Perspectives Observatory (OPS) andthe UNESCO Regional Office in Dakar (BREDA) are the precious instruments ofthis initiative, and they illustrate, inter allia, the need and the will for partnershipsamong African countries. I am also very pleased to acknowledge the importantcontributions of the ADEA to intra-African exchanges betweendecision-makers, between experts, and between decision-makers and expertsthrough its Biennials and various meetings on specific themes as well as throughthe research, reflections and other activities of its working groups.In order to increase the effectiveness of regional cooperation, we shouldendeavour to clearly define its objectives and priorities, rationalize its frameworkfor institutional action to reduce duplication, and increase the coherenceand continuity of its initiatives and the synergy of its actions so that their goalsconverge and resources are used more efficiently. The obstacles to communicationbetween African countries represent a serious hindrance to the developmentof regional partnerships. It is urgent that we remedy this and the use of newcommunications technologies could be a decisive solution.At the international level, it is encouraging to note that we have begun torecognize the errors of the past and learn from them in order to promote authentic32 PARTNERSHIPS FOR CAPACITY BUILDING AND QUALITY IMPROVEMENTS IN EDUCATION