During 1998, the WGFP continued its work which encompasses four main components: The Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE), the Partnership for Strategic Resource Planning (SRP), Female Education in Mathematics and Science in Africa (FEMSA), and the Alliance for Community Action on Female Education (ACAFE).
FAWE
As an independent NGO, FAWE has its own program of work. FAWE use its forum to assist members in the development of national capacities to evolve, try out, and improve strategies that have the potential to accelerate female participation in education and move toward the achievement of EFA.
In 1998, FAWE emphasized the strengthening of its 31 national chapters and supported innovative activities and programs promoting girls' education at national level. As part of its work to strengthen female leadership at the tertiary level of education, FAWE produced a handbook on creating an enabling environment for women in tertiary education and a directory of research and funding opportunities for women scholars.
SRP
In collaboration with FAWE, the Economic Development Institute (EDI) of the World Bank and the Institute for Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex, the Partnership for Strategic Resource Planning for Girls Education (SRP) expanded the work initiated in Guinea, Ethiopia and Tanzania to six new countries: Ghana, Malawi, Mali, Senegal, Uganda and Zambia. Ministries of education implement the activities that involve research, policy analysis, capacity building and advocacy. FAWE national chapters oversee and monitor some of the activities. National researchers coming from the new countries followed a three months course organized by IDS in Sussex. The course encompassed research methods, computer modeling, gender and education and policy analysis. A two-week regional research workshop was organized in Mali in July to present the initial findings of the pilot phase of research in the new countries and to finalize plans for the final studies and national seminars.
FEMSA
FEMSA completed its first phase of activities in Cameroon, Ghana, Tanzania and Uganda in May 1998. A second phase started in June 1998 with eight new countries: Burkina Faso, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Senegal, Swaziland and Zambia. FAWE - now hosting FEMSA since January 1998 - organized a regional seminar in May 1998 to share the outcomes of the first phase of research.
During the second phase, countries carry out policy and school based interventions designed to improve girls' participation in science and mathematics. Each country identifies an institution in which a FEMSA center is located. The FEMSA center acts as a hub for all FEMSA related activities. It also provides a forum for the national science and mathematics education community to share experiences.
ACAFE
ACAFE (the NGO Alliance) expanded the work initiated in the two pilot countries (Zambia and Ghana) to Chad, Mali and Uganda. Each country's NGO Alliance designs its own program in order to strengthen the capacities of NGOs to deliver education to children who may be un-reached or under-served by the formal systems. In July 1998, the NGO Alliance hosted a workshop on lessons learned in implementing the alliance, in collaboration with UNICEF-Accra and the national FAWE Chapter in Ghana.
Katherine Namuddu
Coordinator of the Working Group on Female Participation
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