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Education in Africa

Of all regions, sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rates of education exclusion. Over one-fifth of children between the ages of about 6 and 11 are out of school, followed by one-third of youth between the ages of about 12 and 14. According to UIS data, almost 60% of youth between the ages of about 15 and 17 are not in school. 

Without urgent action, the situation will likely get worse as the region faces a rising demand for education due to a still-growing school-age population.

Education in Africa is major priority for UNESCO and the UIS. In response, the UIS develops indicators to help governments, donors and UN partners better address the challenges. For example, the UIS tracks the extent to which schools lack basic amenities, such as access to electricity and potable water, while monitoring classroom conditions – from the availability of textbooks to average class sizes and the prevalence of multi-grade classrooms. With seven out of ten countries facing an acute shortage of teachers , the Institute also produces a range of data on their training, recruitment and working conditions.  

Girls’ education is a major priority. Across the region, 9 million girls between the ages of about 6 and 11 will never go to school at all, compared to 6 million boys, according to UIS data. Their disadvantage starts early: 23% of girls are out of primary school compared to 19% of boys. By the time they become adolescents, the exclusion rate for girls is 36% compared to 32% for boys.

To help policymakers bridge this gender gap , the UIS disaggregates all indicators by sex to the extent possible, while producing gender parity indices and developing specific indicators related to access to separate toilets for girls and boys and the presence of female teachers, who can serve as role models and encourage girls to continue their education.

These are just some of the ways in which the UIS is helping governments, donors and civil society groups strive towards Sustainable Development Goal 4 ( SDG 4 ) and reach the most marginalised children and youth.  

New Methodology Shows 258 Million Children, Adolescents and Youth Are Out of School

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Meeting Commitments: Are Countries on Track to Achieve SDG 4?

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School Resources and Learning Environment in Africa

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Uis releases more timely country-level data for sdg 4 on education, launch of the 2019 sdg 4 data digest, new projections show the world is off track in meeting its education commitments by 2030, country profiles.

Technical Cooperation Group for Education 2030

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Education in Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa has the fastest growing child population in the world. Yet, the current education system is at capacity, and the demand will increase with nearly 750 million children expected to be of school age by 2060. This rapid increase in cohorts of children and young people presents a significant fiscal pressure on governments in terms of service delivery needs, early childhood development interventions, and sustained investment in accessible and quality education for all, especially girls.

In 2024, the African Union is focused on the theme of education: “Educate an African fit for the 21st Century.” The World Bank’s work in support of the AU Year of Education will focus on four topics: Foundational Learning; Jobs and Skills; Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and Higher Education; and Education Finance. Below is an overview of recent activities and stories in these key areas.

Foundational Learning

• Learning to read, reading to learn: Four lessons from Aprender+ in Mozambique
• Yearning for Learning: 7 Lessons from Western and Central Africa

Jobs and Skills

• Transforming education and skills development in Africa
• An Education in Poultry Farming for Nzingoula Delaunay

STEM and Higher Education

• Youth in Tanzania Reach for the Skies to Make Their Dreams in Aviation Come True
• Science High Schools in Burkina Faso: the cherished dreams of young scientists

Education Finance

• In Chad, proper schools are finally being built again in the Nya Pendé region

EDUCATION IN EASTERN AND SOUTHERN AFRICA

EDUCATING YOUTH TO TRANSFORM WESTERN AND CENTRAL AFRICA

The World Bank and Education

The World Bank Group is the largest financier of education in the developing world, working in 90 countries and committed to helping them reach SDG4: access to inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all by 2030.

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Education in Africa: 5 priorities: demographics, financing, inclusion, quality, employment

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About the publication.

With eight years to go before the goal of the Education 2030 Agenda are due to be achieved, Africa continent is still facing many different challenges in the education and training sector. Which priorities should we, the Africa Office of the International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP), as a privileged partner of ministries in charge of education and training, focus on to maximize the impact of our action? To mark the twentieth anniversary of IIEP UNESCO Dakar, we wanted to share our insights. Our findings are based on evidence from over 50 education sector analyses conducted since 2001 in partnership with African countries. This approach has enabled us to identify the lowest common denominator of the challenges we are facing today: the five education challenges in Africa. In line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda, these themes now guide our actions and our strategic direction.

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Global Education

By: Hannah Ritchie , Veronika Samborska , Natasha Ahuja , Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max Roser

A good education offers individuals the opportunity to lead richer, more interesting lives. At a societal level, it creates opportunities for humanity to solve its pressing problems.

The world has gone through a dramatic transition over the last few centuries, from one where very few had any basic education to one where most people do. This is not only reflected in the inputs to education – enrollment and attendance – but also in outcomes, where literacy rates have greatly improved.

Getting children into school is also not enough. What they learn matters. There are large differences in educational outcomes : in low-income countries, most children cannot read by the end of primary school. These inequalities in education exacerbate poverty and existing inequalities in global incomes .

On this page, you can find all of our writing and data on global education.

Key insights on Global Education

The world has made substantial progress in increasing basic levels of education.

Access to education is now seen as a fundamental right – in many cases, it’s the government’s duty to provide it.

But formal education is a very recent phenomenon. In the chart, we see the share of the adult population – those older than 15 – that has received some basic education and those who haven’t.

In the early 1800s, fewer than 1 in 5 adults had some basic education. Education was a luxury; in all places, it was only available to a small elite.

But you can see that this share has grown dramatically, such that this ratio is now reversed. Less than 1 in 5 adults has not received any formal education.

This is reflected in literacy data , too: 200 years ago, very few could read and write. Now most adults have basic literacy skills.

What you should know about this data

• Basic education is defined as receiving some kind of formal primary, secondary, or tertiary (post-secondary) education.
• This indicator does not tell us how long a person received formal education. They could have received a full program of schooling, or may only have been in attendance for a short period. To account for such differences, researchers measure the mean years of schooling or the expected years of schooling .

Despite being in school, many children learn very little

International statistics often focus on attendance as the marker of educational progress.

However, being in school does not guarantee that a child receives high-quality education. In fact, in many countries, the data shows that children learn very little.

Just half – 48% – of the world’s children can read with comprehension by the end of primary school. It’s based on data collected over a 9-year period, with 2016 as the average year of collection.

This is shown in the chart, where we plot averages across countries with different income levels. 1

The situation in low-income countries is incredibly worrying, with 90% of children unable to read by that age.

This can be improved – even among high-income countries. The best-performing countries have rates as low as 2%. That’s more than four times lower than the average across high-income countries.

Making sure that every child gets to go to school is essential. But the world also needs to focus on what children learn once they’re in the classroom.

Millions of children learn only very little. How can the world provide a better education to the next generation?

Research suggests that many children – especially in the world’s poorest countries – learn only very little in school. What can we do to improve this?

• This data does not capture total literacy over someone’s lifetime. Many children will learn to read eventually, even if they cannot read by the end of primary school. However, this means they are in a constant state of “catching up” and will leave formal education far behind where they could be.

Children across the world receive very different amounts of quality learning

There are still significant inequalities in the amount of education children get across the world.

This can be measured as the total number of years that children spend in school. However, researchers can also adjust for the quality of education to estimate how many years of quality learning they receive. This is done using an indicator called “learning-adjusted years of schooling”.

On the map, you see vast differences across the world.

In many of the world’s poorest countries, children receive less than three years of learning-adjusted schooling. In most rich countries, this is more than 10 years.

Across most countries in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa – where the largest share of children live – the average years of quality schooling are less than 7.

• Learning-adjusted years of schooling merge the quantity and quality of education into one metric, accounting for the fact that similar durations of schooling can yield different learning outcomes.
• Learning-adjusted years is computed by adjusting the expected years of school based on the quality of learning, as measured by the harmonized test scores from various international student achievement testing programs. The adjustment involves multiplying the expected years of school by the ratio of the most recent harmonized test score to 625. Here, 625 signifies advanced attainment on the TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) test, with 300 representing minimal attainment. These scores are measured in TIMSS-equivalent units.

Hundreds of millions of children worldwide do not go to school

While most children worldwide get the opportunity to go to school, hundreds of millions still don’t.

In the chart, we see the number of children who aren’t in school across primary and secondary education.

This number was around 244 million in 2023.

Many children who attend primary school drop out and do not attend secondary school. That means many more children or adolescents are missing from secondary school than primary education.

Access to basic education: almost 60 million children of primary school age are not in school

The world has made a lot of progress in recent generations, but millions of children are still not in school.

The gender gap in school attendance has closed across most of the world

Globally, until recently, boys were more likely to attend school than girls. The world has focused on closing this gap to ensure every child gets the opportunity to go to school.

Today, these gender gaps have largely disappeared. In the chart, we see the difference in the global enrollment rates for primary, secondary, and tertiary (post-secondary) education. The share of children who complete primary school is also shown.

We see these lines converging over time, and recently they met: rates between boys and girls are the same.

For tertiary education, young women are now more likely than young men to be enrolled.

While the differences are small globally, there are some countries where the differences are still large: girls in Afghanistan, for example, are much less likely to go to school than boys.

Research & Writing

Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not. We are all losing out because of this.

Access to basic education: almost 60 million children of primary school age are not in school, interactive charts on global education.

This data comes from a paper by João Pedro Azevedo et al.

João Pedro Azevedo, Diana Goldemberg, Silvia Montoya, Reema Nayar, Halsey Rogers, Jaime Saavedra, Brian William Stacy (2021) – “ Will Every Child Be Able to Read by 2030? Why Eliminating Learning Poverty Will Be Harder Than You Think, and What to Do About It .” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 9588, March 2021.

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Transforming education and skills development in Africa

Luis benveniste, chido mpemba.

Did you know that Africa has the youngest population in the world and by 2050, it is expected to be home to over one billion young people? 

This is a huge opportunity for the continent, but also a serious challenge. How can we ensure that these young people have access to quality and inclusive education and skills training to prepare them for the future?

We firmly believe that youth must be actively involved in shaping and designing policies that affect them. Agenda 2063 —a blueprint and master plan for transforming Africa into a global powerhouse—emphasizes the potential of Africa's people, especially children, youth, and women, in driving the continent's sustainable development. Moreover, the Africa Youth Charter further reiterates the importance of educating youth.

Why education matters

Education is not only a human right, but also a powerful driver of socioeconomic development. That’s why, the African Union and the World Bank are strengthening their collaboration to put education on the front burner of Africa’s transformation by investing in the current and next generations.

One of the most urgent issues to be tackled is the lack of foundational skills among African learners. Foundational skills are the basic skills in literacy, numeracy, and digital literacy that enable learners to acquire further knowledge and skills. Children in Africa are at least five times less likely to learn the basics than those living elsewhere. This means that millions of children are living without the skills they need to succeed in life and work.

Another issue is the mismatch between the current education and skills development systems and the needs and aspirations of African youth. Many young people feel that their education or vocational skill set do not equip them with the relevant competencies for the job market and needs of the 21st century.   They also face challenges accessing quality education and skills development opportunities, especially in rural areas as well as settings of fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV). Moreover, they often lack voice and representation in education policy making and implementation.

How to transform education in Africa

To address these challenges, we need to transform education in Africa. This means rethinking and redesigning the education system to make it more relevant, inclusive, innovative, and responsive to the needs and aspirations of African youth.

The AU youth-led manifesto on transforming education in Africa is a positive first step forward. This manifesto, led by the AU Youth Envoy, is based on consultations with thousands of young people across the continent – from the visit to the Ekhudu District Community in Abuja to key African Edtech innovation hubs – and reflects their vision and recommendations for improving education and skills development. Some of the key proposals include:

• Implementing policies and programs that ensure access and equity for girls, refugees, persons with disabilities, and other marginalized groups.
• Investing in teacher training and incentive programs to attract and retain qualified and motivated teachers.
• Developing curricula that foster creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration skills among learners.
• Digitizing learning materials and expanding access to digital devices and connectivity for learners and teachers.

How do we turn our youth recommendations into concrete action?

At the World Bank , we are working on the ground with the various African governments and partners to implement impactful projects, such as the Edo Basic Education Sector and Skills Transformation project, on improving teaching and learning in basic education; the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment program, on strengthening secondary education opportunities among girls; the Africa Centers of Excellence project on addressing higher-level skills development needs and innovative research; the Tertiary Education & Skills multi-donor trust fund with the support of Mastercard Foundation to prepare youth and adults for the future of work; and other key initiatives (i.e. Foundational Learning Coalition, Accelerator Program, Teach & Coach, and so forth).

At the African Union, over the last year, we have launched initiatives such as the Lead(H)er fellowship for young girls, empowering them to become advocates for change. We've also bridged the digital education gap with the Make Africa Digital (M.A.D) campaign to prepare our youth for a tech-driven world. Through joint advocacy we are excited for the AU theme of the year for 2024, which will be “Transforming Education in Africa.” Our 2 nd African Union Youth Town Hall meeting will include an intergenerational policy dialogue to hold our leaders accountable at the next AU Heads of States Summit.

Join the conversation

We cannot do this alone. We need the support and collaboration of all stakeholders, including governments, civil society, the private sector, academia, media, and most importantly, young people.

That’s why we invite you to join the conversation and share your thoughts and ideas on how to transform education in Africa. What do you think are the most pressing issues facing education and skills development in Africa today? How can we work together to address them? What are some of the best practices or innovations you have seen or experienced?

Let’s keep the conversation going on social media using the hashtag #TransformingEducation. Together, we can make a difference for ourselves and future generations.

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Improving access to quality public education in Africa

Subscribe to the center for universal education bulletin, rebecca winthrop rebecca winthrop director - center for universal education , senior fellow - global economy and development.

February 11, 2022

• 19 min read

On February 8, 2022, Rebecca Winthrop testified before the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee. Her written testimony on improving access to quality public education in Africa follows. View the full hearing .

Chairwoman Bass, Vice Chairwoman Omar, Ranking Member Smith, and other distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify today on the importance of and path forward for helping all of Africa’s children and youth get the century education they deserve. This topic is one that I am deeply committed to advancing however I can, and today I will share my insights both as a former practitioner working on education initiatives across sub-Saharan Africa and as a current scholar at the Brookings Institution working on global education issues. My colleague, Emiliana Vegas, and I co-direct the Center for Universal Education at Brookings where our team currently focuses on addressing education inequality in countries around the world, including through working closely with 35 African partners from national governments to nonprofit organizations across 21 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Our work is also heavily informed by our team of Echidna Global Scholars who are girls’ education leaders around the globe, including 12 scholars leading work on gender equality in education in six countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

As the committee is already well aware, ensuring all Africa’s children and youth have high-quality education opportunities that prepare them for the 21st century   world we live in is not only the right thing to do — children everywhere have a right to a quality education — but is also the smart thing to do.  It falls squarely within four overarching buckets central to the U.S. government’s (USG) strategic interests.

• The growth in the world’s labor market is in Africa. As other parts of the world begin to age, Africa will grow its population and today’s children will be the talent tomorrow’s global companies will be recruiting. In the next 30 years, it is projected that sub-Saharan Africa’s working-age population will increase more than twofold—accounting for 68 percent of the world’s total growth . Economists have shown that when controlling for other factors, increasing girls’ and boys’ years of schooling (and the skills they learn while there) has a positive effect on economic growth. Ensuring girls’ secondary education is particularly impactful. Providing high-quality education today will help build the skills for the world’s future workforce, increase incomes, grow economies, and expand U.S. markets and trading partners.
• Providing education equitably across a country’s population can reduce the risk of violent conflict. Especially in countries with large youth populations, equitable education provisions can support political stability by sending the signal that the government is attending to people’s needs and giving people more tools to resolve disputes peacefully. This “pacifying effect” of education, as conflict researchers often refer to it, can help reduce the risk of civil war and the growth of ungovernable territories and safe havens for violent extremism. Ultimately, it helps promote the safety and security of the U.S.
• Global health. Educated girls and women can better seek and negotiate life-saving health care for themselves and their children. Global studies have shown increased education—particularly for girls—leads to less infant deaths, less maternal mortality, and less infection from viruses (HIV/AIDs). The evidence is so strong for girls’ education that some health researchers call it a “social vaccine.” Healthier communities mean less strains on health systems, a particularly timely interest of the U.S. given the global COVID-19 pandemic.
• Climate change. Increased levels of education support communities’ resilience in the face of climate change and can help reduce communities’ carbon footprints by leading to smaller, more sustainable families. Educating and empowering women can decrease death rates and displacement due to weather-related disasters, and could result in an estimated 85 gigaton reduction of carbon dioxide by 2050, which is not only in the U.S.’s interest, but the world’s.

Given the importance of educating Africa’s children and youth, I would urge the committee to bolster USG attention, funding, and support to increase access to quality education. I offer the below four recommendations for the committee to consider as possible ways to do this.

Recommendation 1: Harness the innovative capacity of African communities

Across the continent, African communities are innovating to solve their problems, often with very little resources. With limited access to physical banks, in Kenya a cellphone company started a global revolution in personal finance (and financial inclusion) in 2007 by inventing mobile money . This idea of “a bank in your pocket” accessed through personal cell phones has spread rapidly across the world. In 2021, Nollywood—Africa’s Hollywood—was the second most prolific film industry in the world. Started less than two decades ago by Kenneth Nnebue with frugal, straight to VHS films, Africa’s film industry is now giving America’s century-old film industry a run for its money. In South Africa, farmers are optimizing their agriculture practices with the help of a platform that combines satellite, drone, and artificial intelligence technology. Today’s innovators are standing on the shoulders of a long line of cutting-edge creatives as Africa’s history demonstrates.

All too often in the U.S., the dire news headlines about Africa obscure the ingenuity and innovative capacity of African communities. Focusing solely on the great needs of communities, without simultaneously recognizing their tremendous assets to solve problems, can create a hard-to-see but nonetheless dangerous mindset that Africans cannot be true partners in the identification and design of solutions to problems the USG is interested in addressing.

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The U.S. Government Strategy on International and Basic Education established in 2019 provides a welcome shift in focusing on partnerships and local ownership. This is one important part of the strategy that should be continued and strengthened. For example, USAID funding has traditionally gone mainly to U.S.-based organizations that have deep technical expertise, excellent administrative capabilities, and sophisticated know-how on navigating USG procurement processes. Often these U.S. organizations will sub-grant to local nonprofits, universities, or networks once a grant is awarded to help implement a specific set of activities. Recently however, especially with the guidance of the Government Strategy on International and Basic Education, USAID is awarding more grants directly to local organizations, beginning to involve local organizations in discussions about the design of programs, and—in a handful of cases—the usual relationship between U.S. and local organizations has been flipped (the local organization is the lead or “prime” and the U.S. organization is its subgrantee).

This increased participation of local actors is not only important to enhance local “ownership” and “sustainability” of USG-funded projects, which is the main rationale in the strategy, but also to harness the creative ideas local organizations and communities can bring to solving some of their most pressing problems. At the Center for Universal Education at Brookings, one of my areas of focus has been on bottom-up innovation and examining the potential it has to help accelerate, or leapfrog, the pace at which education is improving. Having conducted a review of over 3,000 education innovations across 160 countries in my study—” Leapfrogging Inequality: Remaking Education to Help Young People Thrive ” — we found a dynamic innovation sector in every corner of the globe. Of the countries with the most innovations, 1 in 4 were in Africa. Many innovations have the potential to radically bend the curve and close the “100-year-gap,” which is the estimated time it will take (prior to COVID) for the most marginalized African children to catch up in terms of education outcomes with their more enfranchised peers. However, most innovations occurred on the margins of education systems and are hampered by limited attention, funding, and organizational support.

Across its education work in Africa, the USG policy directives, agency strategies, and operations would do well to not only tap into this innovative capacity within African communities, but understand and support the conditions that would help unleash its potential. This is both a mindset and an implementation approach that should be embraced across whatever thematic priorities the USG is investing in. Below are two specific examples of actions the USG could take to support this direction:

• In its ongoing bilateral support for education in Africa, the USG should continue the work of increasingly co-designing and directly supporting local organizations. The many U.S.-based organizations working on education in Africa have many talented and thoughtful team members who should be tapped for their expertise, but they should not be the only ones at the table helping design USG programs nor the only ones leading implementation. As a neutral convener of global education policy debates, we frequently get requests from our African partners, including government officials, to help brainstorm ideas on how to tackle a particular problem “free from the difficulties of managing the priorities of multiple donors” as one partner put it. One concrete way for the USG to advance this is to invest in a design-thinking process with African partners at the center and multiple actors from across a range of disciplines assisting in brainstorming how to “leapfrog” or rapidly accelerate progress in addressing a particular problem (e.g., low literacy levels or high youth unemployment). Systematically supporting “ leapfrog labs ,” a virtual space to conduct this process, could be one way to deepen USG’s work in this area.
• The Global Partnership for Education (GPE) is the largest global fund dedicated to improving education primarily in low-income countries. With work in over 40 African partner countries, GPE puts country voices at the center of its model by supporting ministries of education to develop strong policies building on inclusive consultation with local and international organizations. Ministers of education in Africa and countries around the world have called on GPE to “shift from business as usual” and are keenly interested in strategies that can accelerate the pace of change and ensure “our collective efforts transform the teaching and learning experience.” Supporting this call to action through increased funding to GPE is another concrete way to move this work forward. Currently, the USG gives $125 million annually to GPE, a far cry from the over $1.5 billion annual contribution the USG gives to the global fund for health.

Recommendation 2: Support enriched teaching and learning experiences to improve foundational literacy and numeracy

Africa’s young children are failing to master basic literacy and numeracy skills, which are crucial if they hope to have any longevity in their educational journeys. It is very difficult to explore and master the diverse curricular subjects from history to science that are required as children progress through school without strong reading abilities and foundational understanding of mathematics. According to UNESCO’s recent Global Education Monitoring Report , only 18 percent of all primary-school age children in sub-Saharan Africa achieve minimum proficiency in reading and mathematics, many of whom are enrolled in school. The World Bank and UNESCO Institute of Statistics are tracking this crisis through their work on “ learning poverty ,” which is defined as those children in school who cannot read by age 10, together with those children out-of-school whom they assume cannot read. The organizations argue that if children do not master reading by age 10, they are unlikely to do so later in life.

The USG has over the last decade invested heavily in addressing this “learning crisis,” including  developing internal staff capacity and international partner collaboration. The needs in this area are so great that the USG should continue to support partners to address foundational literacy and numeracy. A mix of approaches will be needed to address this challenge given that approaches for stable contexts will not be the same needed for situations of instability. With the COVID-19 pandemic, rising levels of conflict, and increasing climate related disasters, a nimble approach to adapting strategies should be fostered across all USG agencies working on education.

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In contexts where children are regularly attending school, the focus should be on the classroom-based teaching and learning strategies that have been shown to be effective and able to scale . For example, one cost-effective approach is Teaching at the Right Level which uses differentiated instruction (grouping students by level rather than grade) and interactive pedagogical methods to improve student learning outcomes. Pioneered in India by the nonprofit Pratham, this has also been shown to be effective in Africa. One rigorous study in Kenya demonstrated that dividing classrooms into groups based on students’ learning level increased test scores for all students .

There are many children however who need different approaches, largely because they are not able to access stable schooling provisions either because they are out of school or live in contexts of conflict or instability, which is a situation only exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report, only two of three children in sub-Saharan Africa who enter primary school complete it. UNICEF estimates that in the region nearly 250 million children were affected by pandemic related school closures, on top of the approximately 100 million children out of school before the pandemic, approximately 40 million of whom are of primary-school age. Additionally, 14 African countries are on the World Bank’s most recent list of fragile and conflict affected situations as experiencing at least medium intensity conflict.

In these contexts, it is important to consider flexible approaches to improving foundational literacy and numeracy. One approach is to use accelerated learning programs that help children who have missed several years of schooling catch-up and re-enter school. One example of this type of program is the Luminos Fund’s Second Chance program focused on out-of-school children ages 8-14 in Ethiopia and Liberia. Young adults from the students’ communities are recruited and trained to lead a program where students learn literacy and numeracy through interactive, activity-based approaches. The program covers the first three years of school in 10-months after which time students enter primary school. A longitudinal evaluation found that that this form of “catch-up” learning is far from being a handicap for students but rather an asset. Students in the Second Chance program complete primary school at a rate that is nearly double that of government students, they outperform their peers in English and math, are happier and more confident, and have higher aspiration to continue their education beyond the primary years.

Some flexible learning approaches also have the potential to support children’s literacy and numeracy learning in diverse situations from in and out of school. The teacher shortage in sub-Saharan Africa is acute with an estimated 15 million more teachers needed. Unwieldly class sizes and limited teaching time due to teacher absenteeism, which remains high , requires innovative learning approaches in the short- to medium-term while systems strengthen their human resources recruitment, training, support, and deployment. One promising example of a foundational learning strategy that could “face both ways” for in and out-of-school children is technology-enabled, child-directed personalized learning. Most technology-based learning programs require students to have a certain level of basic literacy. One exception is the X-prize winners onebillion and KitKit School that have helped young children build literacy and numeracy skills starting from zero via solar powered tablets. In a collaboration with the government of Malawi and their partner VSO, the scaling nonprofit Imagine Worldwide is testing the effectiveness of supporting foundational learning in schools with severely overcrowded classrooms. With 40 minutes a day of learning on the tablet, an initial randomized control trial found significant positive effects on overall gains in literacy and numeracy translating to 5.3 months of additional literacy learning.

Across all these contexts, whether children are in or out of school, the global education community has been increasingly paying attention to the important role of families in children’s educational success. In the Center for Universal Education’s recent work “ Collaborating to improve and transform education systems: A playbook for family school engagement ,” we found a number of creative family engagement strategies with strong evidence showing the positive effects on children’s learning. From building community literacy skills and habits that support children’s learning outside of school to SMS messages to caregivers for math practice with their children at home, there are many innovative approaches deployed in African communities. Some approaches, such as improving family-school communication on the benefits of education, are highly cost-effective in helping improve student learning outcomes due to their ability to be implemented at wide scale. The COVID-19 pandemic and the likely growing instability facing many African communities makes strengthening family-school engagement no longer a nice-to-have but a crucial component of supporting children’s learning.

Recommendation 3: Increase investments in improved models of learning that prepare African youth for the future of work

Africa is the youngest continent in the world and for many young people a quality, traditional secondary education can be difficult to come by. In sub-Saharan Africa before the pandemic, of the 98 percent of children who enroll in primary school, only 9 percent make it to tertiary education and only 6 percent graduate. University preparation is important, but the main focus should be on flexible secondary education pathways that prepare young people for work. The COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated the struggle of young people continuing their education.

Demands for secondary education have grown in the region following the large push with the Millennium Development Goals for universal primary completion. This is a particular concern for the countries housing the largest numbers of young people. In 2020, almost half of poor people in sub-Saharan Africa lived in just five economies : Nigeria (79 million), the Democratic Republic of Congo (60 million), Tanzania (28 million), Ethiopia (26 million), and Madagascar (20 million). Serious investments must be made to deliver on these demands. According to the Education Commission, sub-Saharan Africa needs to invest $175 billion per year through 2050 to support secondary education for all. This is a far cry from the $25 billion that was invested in secondary education in 2015.

Crucially, these investments must not come at the expense of continuing to support and strengthen primary education. Inclusive and equitable education systems must be built on a strong early learning foundation, otherwise it will be the most well-off young people who continue to access secondary education and leave their most marginalized peers behind.

This is an area that needs significant attention and it is a gap in the USG’s education work globally. Currently, initiatives on workforce training for out-of-school youth reach only small numbers and frequently are costly , and would not be sufficient for responding to the demand for secondary education. Instead what is needed is a reinvention of secondary education itself. Multiple, flexible pathways so that young people who drop out may have on-roads to re-enter  will be crucial. Many Africans are already experimenting with reinventing secondary education. For example, the Ministry of Education in Ghana is deploying a year-round, two-shift schooling approach to accommodate the large numbers of secondary school students interested in the limited seats in physical school buildings. A South Africa program is partnering secondary schools in marginalized communities with companies struggling to hire employees. A Nigerian early-stage venture capital firm is betting on African education innovation and has started a Future of Learning Fund to seed the private sector education entrepreneurs.

Crowding in investment, innovative ideas, new actors, and robust partnerships to help African youths choose from multiple secondary education learning models could be an important role the USG could play. This is an area that is particularly well suited to public-private partnerships. The whole of USG Strategy on International and Basic Education lends itself well to this work given the wide range of agencies with diverse expertise, tools, and networks that could be deployed. Mobilizing U.S. private sector actors could be one way of greatly expanding the existing USG work on this topic.

Recommendation 4: Lead on system transformation in the face of climate change

Globally, the education sector is just beginning to grapple with what a resilient, climate-smart education system looks like. Finding ways to support flexible, adaptive education ecosystems that are resilient in the face of climate impacts and help spur climate action is something countries around the world will increasingly struggle with.

Already communities across sub-Saharan Africa are facing the climate related impacts on education. Climate change and its associated impact on weather and climate patterns widens inequality gaps in sub-Saharan Africa . Floods, droughts, fires, heat spells, and heavy rain can lead to destruction of school buildings, roads, and bridges; reduce access to sanitation and food supplies; and contribute to the spread of vector borne diseases— all of which can impact school attendance rates, performance outcomes, and dropout rates . Disruptive weather events disproportionately affect girls and young women around the globe, particularly in low-income countries, who are often forced out of school due to damaged infrastructure or other reasons. According to estimates from the Malala Fund, by 2025 more than 12 million girls will be at risk of not completing their education every year as a result of climate change .

The USG has done some initial work in this area, particularly on disaster risk reduction, but it could play a much bigger role and exert real leadership in this area. Developing climate-smart education systems are  cross-cutting endeavors. For example, supporting foundational literacy and numeracy materials that speak to topics in environmental education and youth post-primary education focused on green economy jobs. There is increasing demand from students, teachers, and communities to incorporate climate change education and political windows of opportunity with the first international agreement between Ministers of Education and Ministers of the Environment to collaborate to prioritize climate change education coming out of COP26.

High-quality climate change education has the power to spur climate action, but to date the education sector has not been at the table as a partner in climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts. Globally, less than 25 percent of countries’ national plans to address climate change mention the education of children and youth. There are, however, effective approaches to build on to advance this work. In “ Unleashing the creativity of teachers and students to combat climate change ,” my co-author Christina Kwauk and I highlight a range of practices including climate action projects at schools that both help build community resilience, deepen students’ science learning, and allow them to practice applying academic knowledge to solve problems in the real world.

In conclusion, I urge the USG to renew the whole of USG Strategy on International and Basic Education when it expires in 2023 with attention to the above four recommendations. In 2010, I published a report titled “ Punching Below Its Weight: The U.S. Government Approach to Education in the Developing World .” The title was in part in reference to the 13 USG agencies I found working on education in the developing world with very little coordination and collaboration. The Strategy on International and Basic Education has finally helped address this by providing the policy support needed for agencies to collaborate, and there are good examples of the synergies that have resulted (e.g., CDC training developing country ministries of education on COVID-19 information). A renewed whole of government strategy that brings additional funding, expertise, and networks to supporting education in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in the areas above, would be one that truly punches above its weight.

Education Access & Equity Global Education

South Africa West Africa

Global Economy and Development

Middle East & North Africa South Africa Sub-Saharan Africa West Africa

Center for Universal Education

Christine Apiot Okudi, Atenea Rosado-Viurques, Jennifer L. O’Donoghue

August 23, 2024

Sudha Ghimire

August 22, 2024

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Ten African countries prioritising education

IN April 2024, the African Union (AU) declared this year the ‘Year of Education,’ urging governments to ramp up efforts to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 4—to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”

While countries require an additional US$77 billion annually to meet national education goals and deliver quality education, funding for education remains largely stagnant. Government spending on education as a percentage of GDP hovers at just 3.7% —a figure that has barely budged since 2012.

According to a 2024 analysis by UNESCO, nine out of 49 African countries dedicate 20% or more of their public spending to education, while 24 commit at least 15% and six countries direct less than 10%.

The UNESCO analysis highlights sharp regional disparities in government contributions to education. For instance, government spending covers 76% of costs in SADC (Southern African Development Community) countries, 72% in the UMA (Arab Maghreb Union), and just 49% in the ECCAS (Economic Community of Central African States). Consequently, households in ECCAS bear a higher burden, covering 43% of education costs, compared to just 21% in SADC.

Here are ten African nations prioritising education by allocating significant shares of their national budget to their education departments:

Kenya According to UNICEF, Kenya invests around US$1,500 per student annually in its education sector. In the 2024-25 budget, education emerged as one of the top-funded sectors, with nearly 30% of the national budget dedicated to it. The proposed allocation for education for the current fiscal year exceeds US$5 billion (Ksh. 656.6 billion).

Namibia Namibia spends an average of 20.7% of its total budget and 7.8 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on education. A 2023 UNESCO report ranked Namibia as Africa’s third-highest spender on education. In the 2023-24 budget, more than US$138 million (N$20.3 billion) was spent on education, equivalent to 27.3% of its budget. According to UNICEF, its per-student expenditure averages US$1405.

Botswana Botswana’s government allocates a significant portion of its resources to education, spending around 7.1% of its GDP or 22.2% of its national budget. UNESCO reports that each student in Botswana is funded at approximately US$1,000. This substantial investment is yielding results. A study by Bscholarly.com, in which the World Education Forum assessed 140 countries, ranked Botswana 92nd overall, with a literacy rate of 88%.

Eswatini Eswatini is also one of the biggest spenders in education, dedicating nearly 20% of its budget to funding the sector. Unesco estimates per-student spending to be US$1000. In the 2023-24 financial year, budget proposals submitted to the country’s legislature allocated US $3.6 million (E65 million) to the sector.

South Africa South Africa’s education spending in 2022 accounted for 19.75% of the national budget, reflecting a 1.26% increase from 2021. In the 2023/24 budget, the country is set to invest over US$17 billion (R313.7 billion) in consolidated primary education, amounting to approximately US$1,300 (R23,105) per learner annually.

Burundi Education budget allocations have skyrocketed from around US$84 million (BIF 243.1 billion) in 2016 to over US$1.7 billion (BIF 499.1 billion) for the 2023/2024 period. Per-student expenditure currently averages over US$1,750 per year, according to UNICEF, with the allocation to education as a share of budget averaging 19%, according to Unicef.

Lesotho According to the World Bank, Lesotho’s education spending ranks among the highest globally as a percentage of GDP. By 2021, the amount was 18.4% of GDP, equating to over US$57 million in annual education investment. According to Unicef, per-student spending averages close to US $1000 annually.

Rwanda In Rwanda, the education sector will cost more than US$600 million (Rwandan francs 792.7 billion) in the 2024/25 budget, accounting for 14% of the total budget of US$4,240 million (5,690 billion RWF) for the 2024-2025 fiscal year. Unicef estimates per-student spending in Rwanda to be almost US$1000 per year.

Mozambique According to UNICEF, Mozambique has among the highest per-student expenditure on education in Africa, with an estimated investment of around US$1,500 per student. For 2024, the Mozambican government allocated over US$886 million (€800 million) to education, representing 12.1% of the national budget.

Madagascar Madagascar’s population of 29.6 million includes 14.4 million children under 18 and 20.9 million youths under 30. The country invests nearly US$2,000 per student annually, according to UNICEF. However, the education budget share has dropped from 22% in 2014 to just 12% as of 2021, falling well short of the targeted 20% of the national budget.

Special mention: Mauritius Mauritius is ranked among the top-quality education providers in Africa, according to the World Economic Forum. In the 2024/25 budget, more than US$455 million was allocated to the sector translating to 10% of the total national budget for 2024/25.

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Education in Africa

ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY

Africa: human geography.

Africa is sometimes nicknamed the "Mother Continent" as it's the oldest inhabited continent on Earth.

Geology, Geography, Human Geography, Physical Geography, Social Studies, World History

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Africa, the second-largest continent , is bounded by the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Atlantic Ocean. It is divided in half almost equally by the Equator . The continent includes the islands of Cape Verde, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles, and Comoros. Africa’s physical geography , environment and resources , and human geography can be considered separately. The origin of the name “Africa” is greatly disputed by scholars . Most believe it stems from words used by the Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans. Important words include the Egyptian word Afru-ika , meaning “Motherland”; the Greek word aphrike , meaning “without cold”; and the Latin word aprica , meaning “sunny.” Today, Africa is home to more countries than any other continent in the world. These countries are: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, South Sudan, Chad, Niger, Mali, Mauritania, Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Central Africa Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola, Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Eritrea and the island countries of Cape Verde, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles, and Comoros. Cultural Geography Historic Cultures The African continent has a unique place in human history. Widely believed to be the “cradle of humankind,” Africa is the only continent with fossil evidence of human beings ( Homo sapiens ) and their ancestors through each key stage of their evolution . These include the Australopithecines, our earliest ancestors; Homo habilis , our tool-making ancestors; and Homo erectus , a more robust and advanced relative to Homo habilis that was able to walk upright. These ancestors were the first to develop stone tools, to move out of trees and walk upright, and, most importantly, to explore and migrate . While fossils of Australopithecines and Homo habilis have only been found in Africa, examples of Homo erectus have been found in the Far East, and their tools have been excavated throughout Asia and Europe. This evidence supports the idea that the species of Homo erectus that originated in Africa was the first to successfully migrate and populate the rest of the world. This human movement, or migration, plays a key role in the cultural landscape of Africa. Geographers are especially interested in migration as it relates to the way goods, services, social and cultural practices, and knowledge are spread throughout the world. Two other migration patterns, the Bantu Migration and the African slave trade , help define the cultural geography of the continent. The Bantu Migration was a massive migration of people across Africa about 2,000 years ago. The Bantu Migration is the most important human migration to have occurred since the first human ancestors left Africa more than a million years ago. Lasting for 1,500 years, the Bantu Migration involved the movement of people whose language belonged to the Kongo-Niger language group. The common Kongo-Niger word for human being is bantu . The Bantu Migration was a southeastern movement. Historians do not agree on why Bantu-speaking people moved away from their homes in West Africa’s Niger Delta Basin. They first moved southeast, through the rain forests of Central Africa. Eventually, they migrated to the savannas of the southeastern and southwestern parts of the continent, including what is today Angola and Zambia. The Bantu Migration had an enormous impact on Africa’s economic , cultural, and political practices. Bantu migrants introduced many new skills into the communities they interacted with, including sophisticated farming and industry . These skills included growing crops and forging tools and weapons from metal. These skills allowed Africans to cultivate new areas of land that had a wide variety of physical and climatic features. Many hunter-gatherer communities were assimilated , or adopted, into the more technologically advanced Bantu culture. In turn, Bantu people adopted skills from the communities they encountered, including animal husbandry , or raising animals for food. This exchange of skills and ideas greatly advanced Africa’s cultural landscape, especially in the eastern, central, and southern regions of the continent. Today, most of the population living in these regions is descended from Bantu migrants or from mixed Bantu- indigenous origins. The third massive human migration in Africa was the African slave trade. Between the 15th and 19th centuries, more than 15 million Africans were transported across the Atlantic Ocean to be sold as slaves in North and South America. Millions of slaves were also transported within the continent, usually from Central Africa and Madagascar to North Africa and the European colony of South Africa. Millions of Africans died in the slave trade. Most slaves were taken from the isolated interior of the continent. They were sold in the urban areas on the West African coast. Thousands died in the brutal process of their capture, and thousands more died on the forced migration to trading centers. Even more lost their lives on the treacherous voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. The impacts of slavery on Africa are widespread and diverse . Computerized calculations have projected that if there had been no slave trade, the population of Africa would have been 50 million instead of 25 million in 1850. Evidence also suggests that the slave trade contributed to the long-term colonization and exploitation of Africa. Communities and infrastructure were so damaged by the slave trade that they could not be rebuilt and strengthened before the arrival of European colonizers in the 19th century.

While Africans suffered greatly during the slave trade, their influence on the rest of the world expanded. Slave populations in North and South America made tremendous economic , political, and cultural contributions to the societies that enslaved them. The standard of living in North and South America—built on agriculture, industry , communication , and transportation —would be much lower if it weren’t for the hard, forced labor of African slaves. Furthermore, many of the Western Hemisphere’s cultural practices, especially in music, food, and religion , are a hybrid of African and local customs. Contemporary Cultures Contemporary Africa is incredibly diverse , incorporating hundreds of native languages and indigenous groups. The majority of these groups blend traditional customs and beliefs with modern societal practices and conveniences. Three groups that demonstrate this are the Maasai, Tuareg, and Bambuti. Maasai peoples are the original settlers of southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. The Maasai are nomadic pasturalists . Nomadic pastoralists are people who continually move in order to find fresh grasslands or pastures for their livestock . The Maasai migrate throughout East Africa and survive off the meat, blood, and milk of their cattle. The Maasai are famous for their striking red robes and rich traditional culture. Young Maasai men between the ages of 15 and 30 are known as moran , or “warriors.” Moran live in isolation in unpopulated wilderness areas, called “the bush.” During their time as moran, young Maasai men learn tribal customs and develop strength, courage, and endurance. Even though some remain nomadic, many Maasai have begun to integrate themselves into the societies of Kenya and Tanzania. Modern ranching and wheat cultivation are becoming common. Maasai also support more tribal control of water resources . Women are pressuring the tribe for greater civil rights, as the Maasai is one of the most male-dominated societies in the world. The Tuareg are a pastoralist society in North and West Africa. The harsh climate of the Sahara and the Sahel has influenced Tuareg culture for centuries. Traditional Tuareg clothing serves historical and environmental purposes. Head wraps called cheches protect the Tuareg from the Saharan sun and help conserve body fluids by limiting sweat. Tuareg men also cover their face with the cheche as a formality when meeting someone for the first time. Conversation can only become informal when the more powerful man uncovers his mouth and chin. Light, sturdy gowns called bubus allow for cool airflow while deflecting heat and sand. Tuaregs are often called the “blue men of the Sahara” for the blue-colored bubus they wear in the presence of women, strangers, and in-laws . The Tuareg have updated these traditional garments, bringing in modern color combinations and pairing them with custom sandals and silver jewelry they make by hand. These updated styles are perhaps best seen during the annual Festival in the Desert. This three-day event, held in the middle of the Sahara, includes singing competitions, concerts, camel races, and beauty contests. The festival has rapidly expanded from a local event to an international destination supported by tourism . The Bambuti is a collective name for four populations native to Central Africa—the Sua, Aka, Efe, and Mbuti. The Bambuti live primarily in the Congo Basin and Ituri Forest. Sometimes, these groups are called “pygmies,” although the term is often considered offensive. Pygmy is a term used to describe various ethnic groups whose average height is unusually low, below 1.5 meters (5 feet). The Bambuti are believed to have one of the oldest existing bloodlines in the world. Ancient Egyptian records show that the Bambuti have been living in the same area for 4,500 years. Geneticists are interested in the Bambuti for this reason. Many researchers conclude that their ancestors were likely one of the first modern humans to migrate out of Africa. Bambuti groups are spearheading human rights campaigns aimed at increasing their participation in local and international politics . The Mbuti, for instance, are pressuring the government to include them in the peace process of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Mbuti leaders argue that their people were killed, forced into slavery, and even eaten during the Congo Civil War, which officially ended in 2003. Mbuti leaders have appeared at the United Nations to gather and present testimony on human rights abuses during and after the war. Their efforts led to the presence of U.N. peacekeeping forces in the Ituri Forest. Political Geography Africa’s history and development have been shaped by its political geography. Political geography is the internal and external relationships between various governments, citizens, and territories. Historic Issues The great kingdoms of West Africa developed between the 9th and 16th centuries. The Kingdom of Ghana (Ghana Empire ) became a powerful empire through its gold trade, which reached the rest of Africa and parts of Europe. Ghanaian kings controlled gold-mining operations and implemented a system of taxation that solidified their control of the region for about 400 years. The Kingdom of Mali (Mali Empire ) expanded the Kingdom of Ghana’s trade operations to include trade in salt and copper. The Kingdom of Mali’s great wealth contributed to the creation of learning centers where Muslim scholars from around the world came to study. These centers greatly added to Africa’s cultural and academic enrichment. The Kingdom of Songhai (Songhai Empire ) combined the powerful forces of Islam , commercial trade, and scholarship . Songhai kings expanded trade routes , set up a new system of laws, expanded the military , and encouraged scholarship to unify and stabilize their empire . Their economic and social power was anchored by the Islamic faith.

Colonization dramatically changed Africa. From the 1880s to the 1900s, almost all of Africa was exploited and colonized, a period known as the “Scramble for Africa.” European powers saw Africa as a source of raw materials and a market for manufactured goods. Important European colonizers included Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, and Italy. The legacy of colonialism haunts Africa today. Colonialism forced environmental , political, social, and religious change to Africa. Natural resources , including diamonds and gold, were over- exploited . European business owners benefitted from trade in these natural resources , while Africans labored in poor conditions without adequate pay. European powers drew new political borders that divided established governments and cultural groups. These new boundaries also forced different cultural groups to live together. This restructuring process brought out cultural tensions, causing deep ethnic conflict that continues today. In Africa, Islam and Christianity grew with colonialism. Christianity was spread through the work of European missionaries, while Islam consolidated its power in certain undisturbed regions and urban centers. World War II (1939-1945) empowered Africans to confront colonial rule. Africans were inspired by their service in the Allies ’ forces and by the Allies ’ commitment to the rights of self- government . Africans’ belief in the possibility of independence was further supported by the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947. Mahatma Gandhi, an Indian independence leader who began his career in South Africa, said: “I venture to think that the Allied declaration that the Allies are fighting to make the world safe for the freedom of the individual and for democracy sounds hollow so long as India, and for that matter Africa, are exploited by Great Britain.” By 1966, all but six African countries were independent nation-states. Funding from the Soviet Union and independent African states was integral to the success of Africa’s independence movements. Regions in Africa continue to fight for their political independence . Western Sahara, for instance, has been under Moroccan control since 1979. The United Nations is currently sponsoring talks between Morocco and a Western Sahara rebel group called the Polisario Front, which supports independence . Contemporary Issues Managing inter-ethnic conflict continues to be an important factor in maintaining national, regional, and continent -wide security . One of the chief areas of conflict is the struggle between sedentary and nomadic groups over control of resources and land. The conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region, for example, is between nomadic and sedentary communities who are fighting over water and grazing rights for livestock . The conflict also involves religious, cultural, and economic tensions. In 2003, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), groups from Darfur, attacked government targets in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum. The SLA and JEM were from different religious and cultural backgrounds than the government of Sudan. The Darfurians were mostly Christians, while the Sudanese government is mostly Muslim . Darfurians are mostly “black” Africans, meaning their cultural identity is from a region south of the Sahara. The Sudanese government is dominated by Arabs , people from North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. The SLA and JEM were mostly farmers. They claimed their land and grazing rights were consistently being trespassed by nomadic Arab groups. The Sudanese government responded violently to the attacks by the SLA and JEM. Many international organizations believe the government had a direct relationship with the Arab Janjaweed. The Janjaweed are militias , or independent armed groups. The Janjaweed routinely stole from, kidnapped, killed, and raped Darfurians to force them off their land. The United Nations says up to 300,000 people have died as a result of war, hunger, and disease. More than 2.7 million people have fled their homes to live in insecure and impoverished camps. The international community’s response to this conflict has been extensive. Thousands of African Union-United Nation peacekeepers remain in the region. Other groups have organized peace talks between government officials and JEM, culminating in a 2009 peace deal signed in Qatar. The International Criminal Court in The Hague has issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity . As a result of ethnic conflicts like the one in Darfur, Africa has more internally displaced people (IDPs) than any other continent . IDPs are people who are forced to flee their home but who, unlike a refugee , remain within their country’s borders. In 2009, there were an estimated 11.6 million IDPs in Africa, representing more than 40 percent of the world’s total IDP population. Regional and international political bodies have taken important steps in resolving the causes and effects of internal displacement. In October 2009, the African Union adopted the Kampala Convention, recognized as the first agreement in the world to protect the rights of IDPs. Future Issues Africa’s most pressing issues can be framed through the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). All 192 members of the United Nations and at least 23 international organizations have agreed to meet the goals by 2015. These goals are: 1) eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; 2) achieve universal primary education; 3) promote gender equality and empower women; 4) reduce child mortality rates; 5) improve maternal health; 6) combat HIV / AIDS , malaria , and other diseases; 7) ensure environmental sustainability; 8) develop a global partnership for development. These issues disproportionately affect Africa. Because of this, the international community has focused its attention on the continent . Many parts of Africa are affected by hunger and extreme poverty . In 2009, 22 of 24 nations identified as having “Low Human Development” on the U.N.’s Human Development Index were located in Sub-Saharan Africa. In many nations, gross domestic product per person is less than $200 per year, with the vast majority of the population living on less than $1 per day. Africa’s committee for the Millennium Development Goals focuses on three key issues: increasing agricultural productivity, building infrastructure , and creating nutrition and school feeding programs. Key goals include doubling food yields by 2012, halving the proportion of people without access to adequate water supply and sanitation , and providing universal access to critical nutrition . Scholars , scientists, and politicians believe climate change will negatively affect the economic and social well-being of Africa more than any other continent . Rising temperatures have caused precipitation patterns to change, crops to reach the upper limits of heat tolerance, pastoral farmers to spend more time in search of water supplies, and malaria and other diseases to spread throughout the continent . International organizations and agreements, such as the Copenhagen Accord, have guaranteed funding for measures to combat or reduce the effects of climate change in Africa. Many African politicians and scholars , however, are critical of this funding . They say it addresses the effects of climate change after they occur, rather than creating programs to prevent global warming , the current period of climate change . African leaders also criticize developed countries for not making more of an internal commitment to reducing carbon emissions . Developed countries, not Africa, are the world’s largest producers of carbon emissions . What is certain is that Africa will need foreign assistance in order to successfully combat climate change . Leaders within Africa and outside it will need to seek greater international cooperation for this to become a reality.

Population Density 41.9 people per square kilometer (109 per square mile), as of 2020

Highest Point Kilimanjaro, Tanzania (5,895 meters/19,340 feet)

Most Renewable Energy Capacity South Africa (6,065 megawatts), as of 2019

Largest Urban Area Cairo, Egypt (15.6 million people)

Largest Watershed Congo River (4 million square kilometers/1.55 million square miles)

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Grade 9 - Term 3: Turning points in South African History, 1960, 1976 and 1990

Turning points in modern South African History since 1948&

In 1948 South Africa held a general election which was to be decided by the white population of the country. A manifesto outlined how Apartheid would be implemented in practice which was enforced by the National Party (NP) when they won the election. The focus of this lesson will be on some of the key turning points in South African history, including the coming of apartheid in 1948 and non-violent resistance to apartheid in the 1950s.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights after World War II

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), also known as the Magna Carta, was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948. Due to the experience and effects of the Second World War, the international community vowed to prevent the atrocities and conflicts that occurred during the Second World War to take place again. After approximately six million Jews, Gypsies homosexuals and people with various disabilities were exterminated, the idea of Human rights grew and there was a need to protect every inpidual from these heinous crimes.The United Nations was born from various governments with the principle aim to bolster international peacE and prevent crime and conflict. World leaders then decided to codify these rights that are attributed to each inpidual within a single document, hence the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This document aimed to be the fundamental document of all countries with regard to human rights and strove to secure these rights to all inpiduals.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights captured the international community’s need to guarantee that no one would ever be unjustly denied life, freedom, food, shelter and nationality; as occurred during World War II. The Commission of Human Rights was established within the United Nations which laid out the basic fundamental rights and freedoms as proclaimed in the Charter. One of the most significant aspects of the UDHR is legitimization of the notion that how a government treats its citizens is, especially after World War II, an international concern, and not just a domestic issue. The importance of the UDHR can be seen in the fact that some of the principles have been adopted into national constitutions. 

In its preamble and in Article 1, the Declaration unequivocally proclaims the inherent rights of all human beings: “Disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people...All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”

The Declaration of Human Rights is the most universal human rights document in existence, delineating the thirty fundamental rights that form the basis for a democratic society.

Definition of racism

According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary definition, racism can be described as the “poor treatment of or violence against people because of their race”, and it supports the notion that “some races of people are better than others”. Throughout history race has been associated with the belief that it is a primary determinant of human traits, and it has played a significant factor in the way that power relations occur. Below follows two different discourses regarding the definition and understanding of racism throughout history, as well as South African history.

Human evolution and our common ancestry

Human Evolution describes the extensive process of change where people originated from apelike creatures. Aspects of Human Evolution has been proved by scientific evidence and one of the the main findings that forms the fundamental basis of Evolution is that physical and behavioural traits, which are shared by all humans, originated from these apelike ancestors and have evolved for approximately six million years. 

Apartheid and the myth of ‘race’

The construct can be seen as a highly notorious term, despite it having no physical basis. This term was, however, heavily used in South Africa’s pre- democracy phase, Apartheid. During this period between 1948 and 1994, race was used as a measure to categorize and distinguish people from each other, and determined their position within society. To be more specific, this system categorized people on the basis of their skin colour. All aspects of society were pided to facilitate the complete pision of all race groups. Certain activities and privileges were only reserved for certain people of a specific race. In short, Apartheid was the system during which Africans were legally, socially, politically and economically disenfranchised while the National Party governed South Africa. It is a fact that in any society, race is never an objective, biological characteristic; race is a socially created construct. 

Apartheid, literally meaning (if translated into Afrikaans) “to be in a state of being apart”, was further facilitated by institutionalized Apartheid laws, which further dictated the everyday lives of South Africans. These laws determined where blacks would stay, work, and even who they would marry. During modern times, the indicators of the pision of people are class, status, education, etc. During Apartheid, race was the only aspect that pided society.

1948 National Party and Apartheid 

Racial segregation before Apartheid 

Before the official institutionalisation of Apartheid in 1948, some historians saw it as a complex development that started during the 20th century which was linked to the evolution of South African Capitalism. After the Mineral Revolution took place in South Africa, cheap labour became widely used (which was advocated by Cecil John Rhodes), which the dominating notion that Black labour was cheaper to use in mines and on farms. It is also believed that Apartheid was an outcome of earlier racial prejudices and policies imposed by the British and Dutch. Various sources can be attributed to the cause of Apartheid, or rather the idea of racism. These include colonial conquest, land dispossession, economic impoverishment and exclusion from citizenship for black Africans. These factors shaped the way the world saw Africans and influenced the negative manner in which they were perceived. 

Uneven and, in some cases limited, capitalist growth was facilitated by the colonial conquests of the British and Dutch during the 17th and 18th centuries. The Dutch East India Company (VOC) was established in 1795 with the aim of being a refreshment station for passing ships. When it was established, it was done so at the expense of indigenous citizens, such as the KhoiKhoi and Xhosa people. The Khoi societies sustained their livelihood through their land and livestock, and when the VOC took over their land, the Khoi were subjected to becoming underclass domestic farm workers. They were further disenfranchised when the VOC imported slaves imported from Angola, Mozambique, Madagascar and South East Asia, which curtailed the Khoi’s chances of earning a decent wage. 

Apartheid arose when the National Party, who represented ethnic Afrikaner Nationalism, won the National election on the basis of racism and segregation in 1948. It significantly extended the reach of the racist state and led to a systematic and fundamental deterioration of the position of black people in South Africa until 1994.

The victory of the NP in 1948 can be attributed to the rise in Afrikaner Nationalism during the 1920’s and 1930’s. Afrikaners constituted a majority in terms of quantity of the white electorate, but they were pided by class, regional and educational fault lines. When the Afrikaner Broederbond, a secret Afrikaner society, was established in 1918, Afrikaner nationalism grew from a Calvinist perspective which was united by a common language. The Dutch Reformed Church provided a foundation for the theological justification of Apartheid. In terms of capital, the Afrikaners grew and expanded their financial support through the insurance company Sanlam, the Volksklas Bank and Spoorbond. The rise of the use of cheap labour was induced by the emergence of mines, factories and farms. White-owned businesses accumulated big profits by supporting a government that denied blacks the vote and paid artificially low wages. Many white factory workers and World War II veterans voted for apartheid in 1948 to protect their economic advantages and to oppose black urbanization and social welfare. Furthermore, many white families benefited from the work of black domestic servants who provided childcare, cooking, and house care. D.F. Malan and Hendrik Verwoerd can be considered as the architects of Apartheid. 

Main apartheid laws in broad outline 

The period of the 1950’s can be described as “Petty Apartheid” where Nationalists imposed the laws that created a racially segregated and unequal social order. One of these laws was the 1953 Reservation of Separate Amenities Act that imposed segregation on all public facilities; including post offices, beaches, stadiums, parks, toilets, and cemeteries, and buses and trains as well. In other words, the Act was to provide for the reservation of public premises and vehicles or portions thereof for the exclusive use of persons of a particular race or class, for the interpretation of laws which provide for such reservation, and for matters incidental thereto.

The Pass Laws Act of 1952 was implemented to ensure that a supply of cheap African labour, and increasingly they were made more restrictive. This law required all black South Africans over the age of 16 to carry a pass book, known as a dompas, everywhere and at all times.  It was a criminal offense for Africans to be without a pass and made movement and residence dependent upon a pass. Within the pages of an inpidual's dompas was their fingerprints, photograph, personal details of employment, permission from the government to be in a particular part of the country, qualifications to work or seek work in the area, and an employer's reports on worker performance and behavior. If a worker displeased their employer and they in turn declined to endorse the book for the pertinent time period, the worker's right to stay in the area was jeopardized. 

Two laws that were implemented during this time had arguably the biggest impact on the country. 

The Population Registration Act, which commenced 7 July, classified all South Africans as members of the White, African, Coloured, or Indian racial groups, and because racial identities were (and are) historically and socially constructed, the government created Racial Classification Boards to officially determine a person’s "race." A person’s race was reflected in their identification numbers.

The Group Areas Act imposed strict residential racial segregation. Apartheid social engineering irreparably damaged countless families, communities, and livelihoods, as the government forcibly removed blacks to African, Coloured, or Indian "townships" (also known as "locations") on the outskirts of cities and towns. In the process of enforcing this plan, government bulldozers destroyed vibrant, racially mixed neighbourhoods, such as Sophiatown in Johannesburg and District Six in Cape Town. In practice this meant that all white, black, coloured and Asian people in South Africa would have to live in group areas allocated to members of their groups. Their ownership of property and business rights would be confined to those areas. This also meant that many people had to move out of their homes where they had lived for years and go and live in unfamiliar places which they knew little or nothing about because they had occupied a Group Area designated for another race.  Township residents tried to rebuild their lives despite inadequate housing, material poverty, and, for Africans, the constant danger of arrest for not carrying a pass book.

The Immorality Act caused couples of differing racial backgrounds to be tracked down by the police who were suspected of being in a relationship. Homes were invaded, and mixed couples caught in bed were arrested. Underwear was used as forensic evidence in court. Most couples found guilty were sent to jail. Blacks were often given harsher sentences than whites.

The impact of Apartheid on education was so profound it can still be seen today. Verwoerd’s 1953 Bantu Education Act established an inferior education system for Africans based upon a curriculum intended to produce manual labourers and obedient subjects. Similar discriminatory education laws were also imposed on Coloureds, who had lost the right to vote in 1956, and Indians. The government denied funding to mission schools that rejected Bantu Education, leading to the closure of many of the best schools for Africans. In the higher education sector, the Extension of University Education Act of 1959 prevented black students from attending "white" universities (except with government permission) and created separate and unequal institutions for Africans, Coloureds, and Indians respectively. The apartheid government also undermined intellectual and cultural life through intense censorship of books, movies, and radio and television programs. Censorship reached absurd proportions, exemplified by the banning of the children’s book Black Beauty and the tardy introduction of television in 1976. After that date, government-controlled broadcast media regularly disseminated apartheid propaganda. Educational ties with the rest of the world gradually diminished as countries applied a cultural boycott on South Africa.

In the 1960s the pursuit of white domination led to a new policy of "Grand Apartheid." As a massive social engineering project, grand apartheid created ethnically defined "Bantustans" (or "Homelands") out of the "Tribal Reserves" carved out by the 1913 Land Act. Between 1960 and 1985, approximately 3.5 million Africans were forcibly removed to alleged "homelands." These rural dumping grounds functioned as reservoirs of cheap black labour for white employers, but the apartheid regime also envisioned them as "independent" territories that would ensure the denial of South African citizenship to millions of Africans. Some of these territories, such as Bophuthatswana, comprised dozens of isolated pieces of territory with no common frontier. Situated in the most unproductive regions of the country, Bantustans were inhabited largely by poverty-stricken women and children since men migrated annually to work in South African cities and towns, and farms as well. Generally, government-approved "tribal" leaders ruled over the Bantustans in violent and corrupt fashion with the full support of the South African government, which was responsible for their entire budgets and provided military assistance.

Case study: Group Areas Act: Sophiatown forced removal 

Sophiatown was established in 1904. Before 1913 black South Africans had freehold rights, and they bought properties in the suburb. By the 1920s whites had moved out, leaving behind a vibrant community of blacks, coloureds, Indians and Chinese.

One of the most controversial actions occurred in the mid-1950s when blacks living in Sophiatown, Johannesburg, were compelled to move along with many others to a vast new black township southwest of Johannesburg, called Soweto. In 1955, army trucks and armed police removed 60,000 people from Sophiatown to areas that were designated for Africans such as Meadowlands, Lenasia, Western Coloured Township (now Westbury) and Noordgesig. 

Sophiatown was rezoned for whites only and renamed Triomf (Triumph). The removals sparked the creation of a song called “Meadowlands”, in reference to the Meadowlands township to which many Sophiatown residents were forced relocate.  Another removal that caused particular outrage occurred in the second half of the 1960s, when 65 000 Coloured people from District Six, a vibrant inner city ward of Cape Town, were forced to leave. 

One white observer remarked:

“It was a fantastic sight. In the yard [opposite the local bus station] military lorries were drawn up. Already they were piled high with the pathetic possessions which had come from the row of rooms in the background. A rusty kitchen stove; a few blackened pots and pans; a wicker chair; mattresses belching out their coir stuffing; bundles of heaven-knows-what; and people, all soaked to the skin by the drenching rain”.

When the removals scheme was promulgated, Sophiatown residents united to protest the forced removals, creating famous the slogan "Onsdaknie, onspholahier" (We won't move). Another source states that "We got a notice that we were going to be moved on 12 February 1955, but we were taken by surprise by thousands of policemen and soldiers, who were heavily armed, "We were still preparing ourselves to protest the removals, and we had no choice because no one was ready for them - and besides, they were armed" .  Some people did not qualify for resettlement, so they had to find their own accommodation. Many people moved to Orlando East and other parts of Soweto. 

The Forced Removals Act disrupted the existing family dynamic due to racial classifications and separation of group areas. 

Dr Alfred Xuma, who lived in Toby Street, was one of the last residents to leave Sophiatown in 1959. Today, his house is one of only two houses that managed to escape the destruction of Sophiatown by the apartheid government.

The removals continued for over eight years. Blue-collar Afrikaners were moved in, and still largely occupy the small houses that replaced the lively but desperately poor three-bedroomed homes and backyard shacks of Sophiatown.

Case study: Bantustans: Forced removal: People of Mogopa to Bophuthatswana 

For over 70 years, these people had lived on good land which their forefathers purchased before the 1913 Land Act made this impossible. Then their land was designated a “black spot” in a white area and they were ordered to move to Pachsdraai, in Bophuthatswana. They refused to move. The government, confronted by organized and strong resistance, mounted a counterattack. It imposed a new corrupt chief whom the community refused to recognize. Bulldozers razed the school, the church, and some houses. It withdrew services, no pensions were paid out, no annual labour contracts were issued and the bus service was suspended. Still the people of Mogopa stood fast.

Then a removal squad arrived, complete with tractors, trucks and buses, and camped on their land. Challenged in court for trespass, the government backed down temporarily. But soon the people of Mogopa received an order to leave by November 29, 1983. Hundreds of supporters, black and white church people, students, political groups and the press arrived to wait with the Mogopa people for the government trucks. They did not come. The supporters returned home.

The Mogopa people began to rebuild their battered community. They raised money to buy a new water pump. The men rebuilt the school. The women repaired the roads.

But in the early hours of the morning of February 14, 1984, heavily armed police arrived in Mogopa and declared it an “operational zone” a term usually reserved for the war zones of Namibia. No outsiders were allowed in. Lawyers, priests, diplomats and the press were all turned away at the entrance. The police, working with dogs, forcibly loaded people and belongings onto buses and trucks and took them to Pachsdraai. They arrived to a barren welcome, with their furniture broken, many belongings lost, their cattle sold at a pittance to white farmers, who were the only civilians allowed into the area. Pachsdraai offered little. It was far from towns and job opportunities. The depleted soil was unsuitable for the non-irrigated farming that was the basis of their subsistence agriculture, and the hated imposed headman was given complete control of the allocation of all resources.

The Mogopa people refused to stay, and moved to another area of Bophuthatswana, Bethanie, which is under the jurisdiction of their paramount chief. But their lives are still painfully difficult; the strong community now lives, pided into three groups, without water, without permission to hold meetings, without grazing grounds, without plots to farm, a witness to the real meaning of the bantustan system.

1950s: Repression and non-violent resistance to apartheid  

SACP banned

Initially known as the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) which was founded in July 1921, its name was changed to the South African Communist Party (SACP) during the 1950’s. The Party was founded on the foundation of various leftist movements, including the International Socialist League (ISL), the Social Democratic Federation, the Durban Marxist Club, the Cape Communist Party, and the Jewish Socialist Society, and affiliated itself with the Communist International (Comintern) which was headquartered in Moscow. By the mid-1940s, CPSA membership was increasing, and the party had gained influence after a few CPSA members (all white) won political office. After the 1948 NP election victory, however, the government quickly restricted black political activity and in 1950 banned the CPSA. The party went underground temporarily but also strengthened its ties to local nationalist organizations, such as the ANC. During the years it was banned, while the ANC continued to operate legally, the CPSA viewed the ANC as the primary expression of black aspirations for a multiracial socialist state under eventual communist leadership. The SACP and the ANC in the 1950s held similar views about policy and tactics as embodied in the ANC's Freedom Charter; in addition, they both advocated the use of guerrilla warfare against the apartheid regime in order to bring about the dual-phase revolution of political liberation followed by economic transformation. 

In 1950, the Apartheid Government introduced a bill called the Unlawful Organisation Bill, but later its name was changed to the Suppression of Communism Bill to focus on the undermining and limiting of communism within South Africa due to the government’s concern of a large number of communists infiltrating non- White political organisations.

When the SACP was unbanned in February 1990, its strength was difficult to estimate because many party members had been underground for years. In July 1990, a party spokesman publicized the names of twenty-two SACP members who were prominent in national politics but said that the names of others would remain secret. In 1991 SACP leaders estimated that the party had 10,000 dues-paying members, but refused to publish the party's membership rolls.

ANC programme of action

A Programme of Action was introduced on 17 December 1949 at the December conference which could be considered as a major turning point in the existence of the party. After the victory of the National Party, which was representative of an Apartheid government, the ANC, who stood for the deals of national freedom, wanted to introduce a policy that would counter the NP’s decision. Through this Programme of Action, the ANC was transformed from a party that was run by Middle Class liberals, to a militant liberation movement. The Programme of Action called on the ANC to partake in mass action, including civil disobedience, strikes, boycotts, and other forms of non- violent resistance.

The ANC Programme of Action was based on the principle of national freedom, which is meant by the freedom from white domination and the attainment of political independence. This would also include the rejection of the notion of segregation, apartheid, trusteeship, and white leadership which are motivated by the idea of white domination over blacks. Another basis for the Programme of Action is the Africans’ desire to claim the right of self determination. 

Brief biography: Albert Luthuli, his role in the ANC, and resistance to apartheid 

Albert John Luthuli (1898- 1967), was a South African statesman and the first African to win the Nobel Prize for peace. He was born in Solusi mission station, Rhodesia, where his father served American missionaries as an interpreter. On completing a teacher’s course from a Methodist Institution at Edendale around 1917, Luthuli took up a job as principal in an intermediate school in Natal. In 1920, he attended a higher teacher’s training course at Adams College with a scholarship provided by the government and joined the training college staff afterward. Albert Luthuli was elected as the secretary of the African Teacher’s Association in 1928 and subsequently as its president in 1933. It was while he was teaching at Adams that the Groutville community requested him to become its chief. Sugarcane production, which was the reservation's main source of income, had run into difficulties. Luthuli accepted the invitation and saved the community's economy from collapse.

Luthuli regarded the traditional evaluation of the person as transcending all barriers of race because the infinite consciousness has no colour, and that black and white people are bound together by the common humanity they have. He believed that Christian values can unite black and white in a democratic coalition. Apartheid's preoccupation with colour and the particular experience of the Afrikaner outraged him because it gave a meaning to Christian values which used race to fix the person's position in society and set a ceiling beyond which the African could not develop his/her full potential as a human being.

For holding these views Luthuli was later to be deposed, banned, and brought to trial for treason. The law under which he was charged (1956) was the Suppression of Communism Act. South African law recognizes two forms of communism: the Marxist-Leninist, and the statutory. Whoever opposes apartheid with determination or advocates race equality seriously was a statutory Communist.

Luthuli had involved himself directly in his people's political struggle and, in 1946, had been elected to the Natives Representative Council, a body set up by James Munnik Hertzog to advise the government on African affairs. Luthuli became president of the Natal section of the African National Congress (ANC) in 1951. In this capacity he led the 1951-1952 campaign for the defiance of six discriminatory laws. 

In 1936, the government imposed total restriction on the non-white community, circumscribing every aspect of their lives. Luthuli’s concern for all black people made him join ANC (American National Congress) in 1944. The Africans were denied the right to vote, and in 1948 the government adopted the policy of racial segregation, known as ‘Apartheid’; the Pass Laws were tightened in the 1950's. The objective of the ANC was to secure human rights for the black community, bringing them the rights to justice and equality.

He was elected to the committee of the Natal Provincial pision in 1945 and soon after, he became the president of the pision in 1951. The following year, he came in contact with other ANC leaders and decided to join them in a struggle for justice and equality for all South African people. He organized non-violent campaigns to raise voice against discriminatory laws and racial segregation. He was charged with treason and was asked to pull out with the ANC or leave his office as tribal chief. Luthuli refused to do either and subsequently, he was fired from his chieftainship. In the same year, he was elected president-general of ANC.

For around fifteen years before his death, Luthuli suffered from high blood pressure and he suffered a slight stroke. Over time his sight and hearing also became impaired. In July of 1967, he was fatally injured when a freight train struck him at the age of sixty nine. 

The Defiance Campaign (including the influence of Mahatma Gandhi) 

The ‘Defiance of Unjust Laws Campaign’, as it was formally known, was launched on 26 June 1952 by the ANC and South African Indian Congress (SAIC) in the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi. A tremendous number of people demonstrated against the existing Apartheid Laws by disobeying them to combat Apartheid. The Defiance campaign embraced Gandhi’s notion of Satyagraha, the term he coined in 1907 when he led a batch of volunteers to defy anti-Asian legislation in the Transvaal. Satyagraha entails a firm but non-violent struggle for a good cause. This non-racial initiative raised the controversial issue of the different ‘locations’ of the perse communities it aimed at mobilising, in contrast to the more homogeneous nature of the earlier campaigns, which comprised of Indians only. More than 8000 people of various race groups were arrested for defying the laws of Apartheid by using bathrooms that are not reserved for them, by riding in busses not reserved for them and by committing other offences that were against the law. A major tactic employed by the resistors was choosing to be imprisoned, rather than paying a fine, after arrests which allowed demonstrators to burden the government economically, while giving them a chance to voice their opinions on apartheid when they were tried in court.

In response to the campaign being spread to small rural areas, the South African Security Police, a branch of the government, implemented in August 1952 the biggest police raids on both the offices of the liberation campaign and the homes of liberation leaders. Many of these raids were carried out without legitimate search warrants and if the offices or homes were locked, the police would simply break in. This was a major effort by the South African government to repress the movement, intimidate the people, and find evidence for a trial that would remove the leadership of the campaign. The courts also got involved in the repression by levying the maximum sentence in each case of a resistor. Police brutality also escalated as spectators at trials of protesters were often roughed up by police officers. In prisons, especially, the resistors were targeted by officers for punishment and beatings.

An increasing number of people joined the movement despite the government trying to curtail it. The government aimed all attacks at the leaders of the movement in an attempt to combat the growing popularity of the movement. Nelson Mandela, who was the president of the ANC Youth League at that time, was one of the Defiance Campaign leaders, and was charged with leading the Campaign with the goal of effecting change in both the industrial and social structure of the country using “constitutional and illegal tactics”. This trial provided the foundation for campaigners to spread their message on a national level. 

Although this campaign had been non- violent since its formation, a turning point at this trial occurred when riots broke out, which started in New Brighton and moved to Port Elizabeth, continuing to Denver (in Southern Transvaal) on 18 December 1952. An African person was shot by a railway officer in New Brighton after being accused of stealing paint, which was followed by a group of other Africans who witnessed the commotion and threw rocks at the station where the man was shot, which led to the police opening fire on the crowd, killing seven people. The riots of Denver had a different cause than the one in New Brighton. The residents of the Denver African Hostel refused to pay the increased rental fee. This sparked a conflict in which police fired into the hostel, killing three people. Five days later, after three people gave an ANC salute when they finished their drinks in a Municipal African Beer Hall; they were thrown out of the bar. A group accumulated outside the bar and they began throwing rocks at the hall. Police arrived and opened fire on the crowd, killing thirteen Africans and injuring seventy-eight.

At the end of November 1952, the government prohibited all meetings of more than ten Africans throughout the country and then followed by instituting two laws, the Criminal Law Amendment Act (which targeted any person who broke any law in protest or support of a campaign) and the Public Safety Act (which allowed the Cabinet to temporarily suspend all laws whenever they declared a state of emergency and to enact emergency rules for anything necessary). These new laws were meant to directly suppress the campaign. In the middle of April 1953, after the two laws were passed and all of the damage had been done by the riots, Chief Albert John Mvubi Luthuli, the President-General of the ANC, proclaimed that the Defiance Campaign would be called off so that the resistance groups could reorganize, taking into consideration the new climate in South Africa. The Defiance of Unjust Laws campaign had not been successful and the further movement against apartheid would go on for several more decades.

Freedom Charter and Treason Trial

The initiative for the adoption of the Freedom Charter came from a multiracial coalition of political organisations, including the ANC, Congress of Democrats, Indian National Congress, and South African Coloured People’s Congress. The Freedom Charter’s basic principles rested on the demands for human and political rights, as well as the image of the society it envisioned to replace the Apartheid System, including ideals of the sharing of wealth, adequate housing, education, and healthcare. In other words, the Freedom Charter consists of the political parties’ emphasis on non-racialism is enshrined in a single seminal document of the liberation movement. It also asserts that South Africa belongs to everyone who owns it - which had a strong socialist basis to it. These statements were sued by the government to ascribe communist influence to the movement, and they arrested 153 leaders of the alliance who were charged with high treason. 

The Freedom Charter grew from a campaign to collect the citizens’ ideas for alternative regimes other than Apartheid, which were gathered at meetings. On the June the 26th, 1955 at a Congress where delegates were discussing the Freedom charter, police arrived in force armed with stun guns, and they formed a cordon around the sports field where the discussions were held. Fifteen security policemen then mounted the platform to address the crowd. They claimed that all people present at the congress were committing treason. They then confiscated all documents, posters and film and proceeded taking names and addresses of all the delegates. Everybody was under arrest. A few days later Congress Alliance proceeded to gain the charter's ratification by inpidual member organizations, and launched a campaign to get a million signatures endorsing the document.

A few months after the discussion of the Freedom Charter, the police conducted the raid of 500 activists’ homes, including the homes of Chief Albert Luthuli (president of the ANC) and Nelson Mandela, seizing documents related to the Freedom charter, and also searching for possible evidence of high treason or sedition. The following week, another 12 people, including Walter Sisulu, were arrested. In total the police arrested 156 people: 105 Blacks, 21 Indians, 23 Whites and 7 Coloureds. Banning and restriction were served to hundreds of activists as the Apartheid government stepped up pressure on the liberation movements.In December 1956 police organized a nationwide crackdown on the anti-apartheid movements; top leaders of these movements were arrested and driven or flown in military aircraft to Johannesburg where they were incarcerated in The Fort Prison. In 1957 the "Treason Trial" began in the Johannesburg Drill Hall. The trial lasted until 1961. During this time the leaders of the various liberation movements had the opportunity to share ideas and make future plans.

The accused were represented by a legal team which included Izrael Maisels, Sydney Kentridge, Vernon Berrangé and Bram Fisher. A Treason Trial Defense Fund was started up by Bishop Ambrose Reeves, writer Alan Paton, and Alex Hepple to pay the bail of the accused.

The trial required two stages, a preparatory examination in a magistrates court which would determine if there was sufficient evidence to support a trial, and then, if evidence existed, a trial by the Supreme Court. The preparatory examination of the case lasted until January 1958 (over a year), and resulted in charges against 61 of the accused being dropped - 95 people were still facing trial.

The treason trial proper started on 3 August of 1958

International observers flocked to the trial. Supporters of the liberation movement from all over the world rallied around the black leaders in prison. Funds started pouring in to sustain the accused, their families, and to pay legal costs. Most of those charged were subsequently freed without going to trial. In 1961 the remaining 30 prisoners were freed. The trial lasted for more than 4 years 

Within a week of the trial starting, one of the two charges under the Suppression of Communism Act was dropped. Two months later the Crown announced that the whole indictment was being dropped, only to issue a new indictment against 30 people - all members of the ANC. Additional indictments against another 61 people were threatened but were never realized.

Chief Albert Luthuli and Oliver Tambo were released for lack of evidence. Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu (ANC secretary-general) were among the final 30 accused.

On 29 March 1961 Justice FL Rumpff interrupted the defense summation with a verdict. He announced that although the ANC was working to replace the government and had used illegal means of protest during the Defiance Campaign, the Crown had failed to show that the ANC was using violence to overthrow the government, and were therefore not-guilty of treason. The Crown had failed to establish any revolutionary intent behind the defendant's actions. Having been found non-guilty, the remaining 30 accused were discharged.

Women’s March

The women’s march was greatly a response to one of the Apartheid laws that were originally imposed on African men alone.  Although African men had been required to carry passes for many decades, only in the 1950s did the government impose pass laws on African women. The first attempt to make black women in South Africa carry passes was in 1913 when the Orange Free State introduced a new requirement that women, in addition to existing regulations for black men, must carry reference documents. The resulting protest that was by a multi-racial group of women, many of whom were professionals (a large number of teachers, for example), took the form of passive resistance - a refusal to carry the new passes. African women were not allowed to live in towns unless they had permission to be employed there, and extending pass laws to them made it more difficult for women without jobs to take their children and join their husbands in town. Many of these women were supporters of the recently formed South African Native National Congress (which became the African National Congress in 1923, although women were not allowed to become full members until 1943). The protest against passes spread through the Orange Free State, to the extent that when World War I broke out, the authorities agreed to relax the rule. Across the country, dozens of protests against pass laws for African women took place before the Federation of South African Women (formed in 1955) and the African National Congress Women’s League organized a massive protest march in Pretoria. 

At the end of World War I, the authorities in the Orange Free State tried to re-instate the requirement, and again opposition built up. The Bantu Women's League (which became the ANC Woman's League in 1948 - a few years after membership of the ANC was opened to women), organized by its first president, Charlotte Maxeke, coordinated further passive resistance during late 1918 and early 1919. By 1922 they had achieved success - the South African government agreed that women should not be obliged to carry passes. However, the government still managed to introduce legislation which curtailed the rights of women and the Native (Black) Urban Areas Act No 21 of 1923 extended the existing pass system such that the only black women allowed to live in urban areas were domestic workers.

With the Blacks (Abolition of Passes and Co-ordination of Documents) Act No 67 of 1952, the South African government amended the pass laws, requiring all black persons over the age of 16 in all provinces to carry a 'reference book' at all times - thereby enforcing influx control of blacks from the homelands. The new 'reference book', which would now have to be carried by women, required an employer's signature to be renewed each month, authorization to be within particular areas, and certification of tax payments.

During the 1950s women within the Congress Alliance came together to combat the inherent sexism that existed within various anti-Apartheid groups, such as the ANC. Lillian Ngoyi (a trade unionist and political activist), Helen Joseph, Albertina Sisulu, Sophia Williams-De Bruyn, and others formed the Federation of South African Women. The prime focus of the FSAW soon changed, and in 1956, with the cooperation of the ANC's Women's League, they organized a mass demonstration against the new pass laws.

On August 9, 1956, 20,000 women, representing all racial backgrounds, came from all over South Africa to march on the Union Buildings, where they stood in silent protest for 30 minutes while petitions with 100,000 signatures were delivered to Prime Minister JG Strijdom’s office. These petitions were in favour of the introduction of new Pass Laws and the Group Areas Act No. 41 of 1950. Many men in the anti-apartheid movement were surprised by the women’s militancy, and the protest contributed to women playing a bigger role in the struggle for freedom and democracy. August 9th now is celebrated as National Women’s Day in South Africa.

During the march the women sang a freedom song: Wathint' abafazi, Strijdom!

wathint' abafazi,

wathint' imbokodo,

[When] you strike the women,

you strike a rock,

you will be crushed [you will die]!

Brief biographies: Helen Joseph and Lillian Ngoyi and their roles in resistance to apartheid

Helen Joseph: Helen May Fennell was born in Sussex, England, in 1905 and grew up with her parents and brother. She graduated from King’s College, University of London, in 1927 with a degree in English. She then went to India to teach at a school for girls in Hyderabad for three years. In 1931 Helen came to Durban, South Africa where she met her husband, Billie Joseph. 

During the Second World War Helen served as an Information and Welfare officer for the Women's Auxiliary Air force where she decided to become a social worker. In 1951 she took a job with the Garment Worker’s Union, led by Solly Sachs. During this time, and as a result of working closely with Sachs, Helen came to see and experience the "true face" of Apartheid, which angered her tremendously due to its blatant injustice. Helen was a founding member of the Congress of Democrats (the ANC's white ally). In 1955 Helen was selected as one of the people who read out clauses of the Freedom Charter at the Congress of the People in Kliptown. In 1956, Helen led a march of 20 000 women to Pretoria's Union Buildings in protest of the Pass Laws.

Like some of South Africa’s black leaders during that time, Helen was arrested on a charge of high treason, followed by her being banned in 1957 as well as being the first person to be placed under house arrest. When she was 80, she regained her freedom when her final ban was lifted in 1985. 

Helen died on 25 December 1992 in Johannesburg, Gauteng. 

Lillian Ngoyi: Lillian Ngoyi was one of the women leading the Women’s March on 9 August 1956. She was born on 25 September 1911 and she, a widowed seamstress supporting two children and an elderly mother, joined the ANC Women’s League in 1952.  She went on to become the first woman elected to the executive committee of the African National Congress.

She travelled to Switzerland in 1955 to participate in the World Congress of Mothers held by the Women’s International Democratic Federation to plead the cause of black women in South Africa.  Then she went on to visit England, Germany, Romania, China and Russia before returning to South Africa as a “wanted woman”. She was arrested in 1956, spent 71 days in solitary confinement and for eleven more years was banned and confined to her home in Orlando, Soweto, causing great suffering for her and her family.  Mangosuthu Buthelezi and Beyers Naudé wrote several letters pleading Lilian Ngoyi’s cause. Naudé discussed her various domestic and financial needs, while raising the possibility of her banning order being lifted. 

Amongst the many honours since the fall of apartheid that have been heaped on her, a community health centre in Soweto, a Hall at Rhodes University, as well as an environmental patrol vessel is named in her honour.

Lilian Masediba Ngoyi died on 13 March 1980, many years before the country would reap the fruits of her labour despite her express wish:  “I am hoping with confidence that, before I die, I will see change in this country.”

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