ADEA and USAID move forward the African book industry through the Global Book Alliance

Under the umbrella of the Global Books Alliance (GBA), the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA), - through the Books and Learning Materials section of its Inter-Country Quality Node on Teaching and Learning (ICQN-TL) – and in partnership with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) organized three activities with the Ghana’s book industry stakeholders on the occasion of the Ghana International Book Fair (GIBF). This key event for the book and learning material sector took place from 30 August to 2 September 2018 at Accra International Conference Center. 

The main activities included a Bloom Software in-country training workshop for enabling African writers; an Open Licensing Seminar and an Open Forum with the African Publishers Network (APNET). These events were a follow up of the recommendations made in an Action Plan that was agreed upon by African book industry stakeholders during a workshop organized by ADEA in January 2018 in Abidjan. 

Independent publishing consultants including David Waweru (Kenya), Lisbeth Levey (Israel) and Kirsty Von Vogh (South Africa) facilitated the three events attended by prominent personalities of the Ghana book industry and representatives from other African countries such as Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa. 

Amongst the major results achieved during the Ghana International Book Fair, it is important to highlight that the Bloom software in-country training equipped 19 Ghanaian writers of local language books with technical skills to develop simple books using the Bloom publishing technology. As concerns the ADEA/APNET “Forum on the Future of African Publishing”, 27 participants comprising publishers, booksellers, presidents of national publishers’ associations, founding members of APNET, publishing consultants, writers, and a representative from UNESCO attended the event.The Forum main objectives were to learn about the key outcomes of the ADEA/GBA Regional Workshop for African Book Industry Stakeholders as well as propose new solutions to enhance the organizational effectiveness of APNET and implement Publishing Collaborative in Africa.Participants resolved not only to ensure that APNET is revived to take its rightful place in catalyzing the African book industry  but also to form a Task Force under the Books and Learning material section of the ADEA’s ICQN-TL and in partnership with the Global Book Alliance to move forward the African book industry through a Publishing Collaborative (PC). Concerning the last seminar, a total of 29 participants consisting mainly of authors, publishers, booksellers and some government officials attended the “Open Licensing Seminar” whose purpose was to explore the concept of open licensing with Ghanaian stakeholders and create awareness and possibilities thanks to new business models.

In the end, three major recommendations stemmed from these successful activities:

1. ADEA and GBA will build a realistic strategy to implement the African Publishing Collaborative Initiative in line with the five priority areas agreed upon in January 2018. In addition, a Special Purpose Task Force – comprising prominent African professionals and stakeholders in the book chain – will be formed to work with the Books and Learning Materials section of the ADEA’s ICQN-TL while a Coordinating Team will be set up to manage the African Publishing Collaborative (APC). 
2. The Action Plan proposed to the interim APNET Board by the participants should be supported and necessary efforts made to revive APNET. In addition, the Books and Learning Material section of the ADEA’s ICQN-TL will be supporting all strategic follow-up activities leading to and during the planned workshop for the Lagos Book Fair 2019. 
3. The Books and Learning Materials section of theADEA’s ICQN-TL will continue to support Publishers Associations across Africa to organize joint meetings with those trained on the Bloom software as well as local African language publishers. To this end, in order to provide participants with adequate preparation and full understanding of the Bloom publishing software, future workshops will consist of a 5-day training.

For more information, please contact:

• Lily Nyariki, Focal point of the Books and Learning Materials section of ADEA’s Inter-Country Quality NodeonTeaching and Learning (ICQN-TL), Phone no.: (+254) 733 712117, Email: lmnyariki@gmail.com / l.nyariki@adeanet.org
• Aliou Sow, Focal point of the Books and Learning Materials section of ADEA’s Inter-Country Quality NodeonTeaching and Learning (ICQN-TL), Phone no.: (+224) 622 54 48 26 / (+001) 514 803 6190, Email: aliou2sow@yahoo.fr