1st Bridge Africa Conference Kick starts In Lilongwe

The 1st Bridge Africa Conference has started in Lilongwe on Wednesday with much anticipation from Malawi Government to learn best ways of achieving results in the Bridge Africa projects being implemented in the country.   

Bridge Africa Project aims at promoting field level efforts that expand access to quality education in Sub-Saharan African countries. 

Emmanuel Fabiano

“This conference is very important because it will be focusing on learning from each other between South Korean country and countries in Africa who have participated. So this will help Malawi to learn best practices from achievements made by other countries” said Malawi Minister of Education, Science and Technology, Dr. Emmanuel Fabiano when asked about Malawi expectations from the conference

Earlier, speaking when opening the conference, Fabiano commended Korean Government for its Bridge Africa Project which has brought together various African countries.

Fabiano underlined that collaboration and learning from one another as Bridge Africa conference has done will help African countries to attain Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.

He noted in his remarks that Bridge Africa Project approach is in tandem with SDG’s no. 4 which calls upon the World Community to ‘Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote life-long learning opportunities for all”  

“It is an innovative approach that would help developing nations to accelerate attainment of SDG no 4.” He said 

“I am fully convinced that the Bridge Africa Project concept has the capability of harnessing the potential and zeal of communities in addressing the education challenges faced by the communities themselves.  By empowering communities to take full control of their education development agenda, the Bridge Africa Project is not only promoting ownership of the education programmes by the communities, but is also encouraging them to break their mental barriers own what they can achieve for their children and for themselves in education.”

In Malawi KNCU is supporting Government in areas of Early Childhood Education, Adult Literacy and vocational Skills.

On skills development, Fabiano said on its part, Malawi Government is also championing programmes that are aiming at investing in human capital including Community Technical Colleges which empowers young people with relevant entrepreneurial and employable skills.

Hubert Gijzen

The Director and Representative from UNESCO Regional Office for Southern Africa, Professor Hubert Gijzen also shared similar sentiments made by Fabiano on the importance of creating partnerships

“This new ambitious agenda needs partnerships at all levels. So this calls for new partnerships and new cooperation” he said adding there is also a need to look for new funding models of programmes especially domestic funding to achieve results

He said Bridge Africa Project focuses on Community Learning Centre because it intends to empower rural communities especially in African Countries where large portion of the population lives in the rural areas to start helping themselves in order for countries to achieve progress.

He also urged communities to own the Community Learning Centers and carryout by themselves all programmes so that they realise full benefits of the initiatives.

Korean National Commission for UNESCO (KNCU) and Malawi National Commission for UNESCO have organized the three day conference in Lilongwe with an aim of facilitating South-South cooperation to produce practical and incremental learning effects for all the participants and all the stakeholders in the Bridge Africa Programme through sharing of good practices appropriate to different local circumstances.

The conference will further provide participants from Bridge Africa partner countries with practical opportunity to better understand the concept and practices of Bridge Africa Programme and to form partnerships to develop innovative models for Community Learning Centres (CLCs)

The 1st Bridge Africa Conference is being held under the theme; Sharing Experiences, Paving Way Forward and has drawn 60 participants from Rwanda, Malawi, Lesotho, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Botswana and Swazland.