The nations of sub-Saharan Africa confront many obstacles in educating women, including financial constraints, competing demands for girls' and women's time, unsafe school settings, a lack of trained teachers — all exacerbated by the HIV/AIDS epidemic that has depleted the teaching and school administrative force in many countries on the continent.

At present, girls constitute more than 50 percent of the 44 million children in Africa who do not have access to primary education. In many countries, the costs associated with schooling are an insurmountable barrier for poor families trying to obtain an education for their children. In African nations that have made primary schooling free for every child, the sudden influx of millions of new students has often led to individual class sizes of 100 or more pupils, severely straining resources and challenging the ability of teachers to offer quality instruction.

The U.S. government's foreign assistance programs support a multitude of innovative projects to improve education in Africa and help nations in the region overcome the challenges to strengthening and expanding their school systems, including increased enrollment of girls.

A cornerstone of such U.S. efforts is the Africa Education Initiative, launched in 2002 with an initial budget of $15 million and an additional commitment of $185 million over the subsequent four years through 2006. The initiative is managed by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), working closely to carry out its programs with host-country ministries of education and institutions of higher education, the private sector, and local and international nongovernmental organizations.

The principal objective of the initiative is to increase both the access to quality basic education and the number of teachers, especially at the primary school level. At this time, only 63 percent of all children in sub-Saharan Africa attend primary school, and only 21 percent go on to secondary school.

To help improve this situation, the U.S. goal is to provide 250,000 scholarships for African girls, train more than 160,000 new teachers, and offer in-service training for more than 260,000 current teachers. So far, as a result of the initiative, more than 110,000 teachers have upgraded their skills through in-service training, and approximately 20,000 teachers have received pre-service training; moreover, 770,000 textbooks and other materials were distributed to students, and 17,000 girls benefited from scholarships.

Another key component of the initiative is creating partnerships between six historically black U.S. colleges and universities and six educational institutions in African nations to supply 4.5 million textbooks to schoolchildren in Africa.

In addition to the Africa Education Initiative, USAID manages bilateral education programs in 16 African countries. In the West African nation of Benin, for example, education is a centerpiece of U.S. foreign assistance efforts. USAID has worked closely with its Ministry of Education to design and implement a new primary school curriculum focusing on active learning and relying less on rote memorization of facts. This curriculum is now being implemented nationwide. Community and government sensitization to the importance of girls' education helped increase their gross school enrollment numbers.

Further north in the Sahel region, USAID supports the government of Mali's goal of offering all children universal access to primary education by 2015. At present, only 44 percent of girls in that country are in school, and women constitute just 20 percent of the teaching corps. Among the educational projects the United States funds in Mali is one addressing girls' specific learning needs, including making school environments more amenable to the demands on girls' time (supporting community schools that are located closer to their homes with more flexible school schedules) and ensuring that the curriculum is gender sensitive.

The nation of Angola offers a case study of the daunting developmental challenges many African countries confront, as well as the incremental, grass-roots improvements that U.S. foreign assistance supports.

Gaining independence in 1975 after 400 years of Portuguese colonial rule, Angola endured a quarter-century of nearly continuous warfare between the two major political factions. Although Angola is rich in natural resources, such as oil, diamonds, and fisheries, the conflict left the country's economy in shambles and as many as 1.5 million dead. Social indicators, including infant mortality and life expectancy, are among the worst in the world, and the country faces a challenge in educating the population to avoid the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Literacy rates in Angola also are low, with only 42 percent of the population aged 15 or older able to read. The statistics for Angolan women are even worse: Only 28 percent can read and write.

As part of the U.S. government's foreign assistance program in Angola, a USAID-funded women's center has helped provide basic literacy skills to women who otherwise have no access to formal education. Created as much to help strengthen the development of civil society and the understanding of human rights as to improve literacy, the center provides a clean, comfortable learning environment for volunteer teachers and their students.

Inaugurated in July 2003, the center currently enrolls 1,200 women, with an eventual capacity twice that size. To date, more than 1,500 Angolan women have received basic literacy training there. The center plans to supplement these literacy classes with training in small-business management — an important feature, given that most of these women earn their livelihood working as street vendors or operating microbusinesses.

The Angolan Ministry of Education has committed itself to providing additional teachers, books, and educational materials for this women's center. It has also cited the institution as an excellent example of the initiatives needed to foster literacy as well as the values of civil society, both of which, in turn, help underpin Angola's economic and political development.

Investing in girls' education does, in fact, confer significant economic and social returns on developing nations in Africa and elsewhere. Studies show that girls who complete even primary education become adults who are healthier and more economically productive and politically active; and they raise children who stay in school longer.

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