Three new African-led initiatives have been announced at the 2025 ADEA Triennale in Accra, Ghana, to help address critical barriers to progress on foundational learning in Africa.

• A programme to link countries' demand for foundational learning reforms with Government-led technical expertise and catalytic financing to enable large-scale, sustainable impact. This is funded by a philanthropic coalition.
• An initiative for knowledge sharing and support for assessments. This will provide peer-learning opportunities and information on available resources to help countries improve the collection and use of comparable assessment data, ensuring evidence-based decision-making.
• A new government-led accountability tool will track progress against government commitments to end learning poverty by 2035.

Accra, Ghana – 29 October 2025 – African Ministers of Education, philanthropists, and civil society organizations today launched three flagship initiatives to accelerate the resolution of the continent's learning crisis and turn its demographic dividend into economic power.

Recognizing that while the learning crisis in Africa is an emergency, and the urgency of the problem seems daunting, Africa has the political will, local technical expertise, and alignment on the interventions that work to fix it.

While opening the Triennale, Her Excellency Prof. Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang, the Vice President of Ghana, said, 

“I believe that the 2025 Triennale will strengthen collaboration in Africa, and we believe that the time has come for Africa to rely on its own domestic resources to solve her problems. We need to prepare our education systems for rapid technological change and digital transformation - going beyond coping to create and contribute.”

Energized by global south success stories and funding models that have yielded remarkable results in foundational learning outcomes at scale, Africa has a bold new opportunity to rewrite the playbook—an Africa-led agenda for learning, driven by evidence, fuelled by data, domestic budgets, catalytic philanthropy, and accountable for action and results.

The African Union has committed to ending the learning crisis on the continent by 2035. More than 30 nations have domesticated that commitment through individual pledges and national campaign launches to achieve the goal at the national level through a concerted decade of action on education. Investing in improving student learning outcomes in reading and math is investing in Africa's potential to power its next generation and drive jobs on the continent.

Evidence shows that foundational learning outcomes have a significant return on investment—driving jobs, earnings, economic growth, and prosperity, with ripple effects across secondary, TVET, and tertiary education. Proven solutions also exist and are being implemented across the continent. Solving the learning crisis is achievable and must be anchored in concrete classroom changes and supported by a strong instructional core.

By 2050, 1 in 3 young people in the world will live in Africa. The continent is poised to dominate growth in the global working-age population over the next few decades, making the productivity of Africa’s youth of global consequence. Yet, currently, 9 out of 10 children leave school unable to read a simple sentence or solve a basic math problem. Early math and reading skills predict later academic success and job readiness; those who start behind often stay behind, leading to high dropout rates, fewer employment opportunities, and broader economic and social costs.

To accelerate progress and drive continental and national action, African education leaders unveiled three flagship initiatives to drive data use for policy design and resource allocation, enhance collective and country-level accountability, and ensure that country-level actors

have access to the technical support required to drive and implement system reforms at scale.

• The Foundational Learning Initiative for Government-Led Transformation (FLIGHT) is a $35 million government-led, demand-driven initiative that provides homegrown technical support to strengthen education systems through evidence-based practices and locally developed solutions.
• The African Foundational Learning Assessment Initiative (AFLAI) is bringing together policymakers, data organizations, and funding partners to strengthen foundational learning assessment systems across the continent and ensure that data is usable and comparable.
• The Foundational Learning Exchange indicators (FLEX indicators) will track country progress toward commitments made at the 2024 Foundational Learning Exchange in Kigali, Rwanda, to end learning poverty by 2035.

Speaking at the launch of the FLIGHT initiative on behalf of the funders, Anders Holm, the CEO of the Hempel Foundation, said:

“This is truly a landmark moment for foundational learning in Africa. We are proud to stand alongside African governments, ADEA, HCA, and other partners in supporting this bold, government-led initiative. For too long, the education sector has faced a persistent gap between ambition and execution. FLIGHT is exciting because it changes [sic] fill that gap. It is government-led, African-designed, and results-focused — bringing in practical expertise exactly where countries tell us it is needed most. For us, this is not just another grant — it’s a chance to support a model that helps governments lead from the front, while philanthropy plays a catalytic, enabling role. We invite other funders, particularly from the continent, to join us, as we all have a huge stake in the success of Africa's young people, starting from its youngest learners.”

Speaking at the launch of AFLAI, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, the CEO and founder of Human Capital Africa, said: 

“AFLAI has emerged as a bold continental effort to strengthen Africa’s learning assessment system, generate reliable data, and support governments to use evidence to measure and improve foundational learning reforms. We have reaffirmed that learning data goes beyond numbers. It serves as a compass guiding instruction, resource allocation, and accountability.”

Speaking at the ADEA Triennale, ADEA Executive Secretary Albert Nsengiyumva said: 

“The accountability framework is designed to be simple, actionable, and aligned with African Union processes, particularly the forthcoming CESA 2026–2035 framework. It draws on existing data sources and tools, including the Foundational Learning Action Tracker, to connect the annual FLEX conferences through a continuous cycle of tracking learning and country progress. By providing a shared reference point for tracking results, the framework will enable countries to take stock of achievements, identify challenges, and report measurable progress at each FLEX convening. It will serve as a cornerstone of the FLEX 2026 Conference, where countries will present their progress against a common set of indicators. Zambia and Kenya are among the first countries engaged in piloting the framework, with additional countries expected to join in the lead-up to FLEX 2026.”

Detailed summaries of each initiative are provided below:

FLIGHT is co-created by African Ministers of Education, ministry technical staff, local implementing partners and supported by the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA), Human Capital Africa (HCA), Learning Masterminds, and Haske Consulting. The FLIGHT initiative is a new $35 million partnership between African governments and philanthropic organizations to accelerate foundational learning outcomes. Initial philanthropic partners include Echidna Giving, the Gates Foundation, the Hempel Foundation, and the Roger Federer Foundation. Together, they are deploying philanthropic capital to support the effective implementation of foundational learning reforms to improve teaching and learning.

Ahead of FLIGHT’s official launch in 2026, the consortium will finalize its operational design. The consortium is actively calling on other funders to provide additional philanthropic investments. The African philanthropic ecosystem has a unique role to play — and a huge stake in the outcome. Similar to other Global South contexts, where domestic philanthropy played a major strategic role in driving large-scale educational reforms in foundational learning, African philanthropy can help catalyze African educational transformation.

FLIGHT aims to improve learning outcomes for all children across Africa by accelerating foundational learning reforms by closing technical and implementation gaps left in the aftermath of the collapse of traditional overseas development assistance (ODA). Designed to do development differently and learn lessons from the past era of ‘big aid,’ FLIGHT seeks to move away from the donor-driven conveyor belt of projects. Instead, it responds directly to government priorities, connecting Ministries with Africa’s strongest problem-solvers, project managers, and technical specialists. The goal is to unlock and harness national and regional talent more fully, enabling governments to drive reforms and deliver lasting impact.

AFLAI: Creating Consistent Data for Informed Policy

Led by ADEA, the AFLAI initiative recognizes the critical importance of accurate, reliable, and comparable assessment data to inform policy and resource allocation decisions at the ministry level. Working closely with members of the Foundational Learning Ministerial Coalition, the initiative will support knowledge sharing and access to resources that will provide policymakers with the information in five critical areas: improve data use and communication; setting benchmarks; assessment planning and capacity building; innovation and artificial intelligence; and language and equity.

AFLAI will enable governments to collect usable, comparable, and fit-for-purpose data on foundational skills. It will be responsive to the emerging needs of those countries that have already committed to collecting data on foundational learning.

At a time when externally funded assessments are dwindling, AFLAI’s vision is clear. Through strategic investments and a stronger community, small yet impactful steps can unlock the

potential of government-led assessments and address barriers to usable and useful learning outcomes data.

FLEX indicators: A common framework to track progress and ensure accountability

At the FLEX 2024 Summit in Kigali, Rwanda, African governments launched a declaration to end learning poverty by 2035. Over 24 African countries have signed the declaration. In July 2025, as part of the African Foundational Learning Ministerial Coalition, countries agreed to establish an accountability framework to track progress towards the delivery of those commitments.

The FLEX accountability framework is being developed to support African countries and partners in tracking progress, promoting peer learning, and strengthening accountability for results in foundational learning across the continent. Rooted in the FLEX 2024 commitments, the tool translates the collective pledge into concrete action. It will provide a coherent way to monitor how countries are advancing against the five FLEX commitments to:

1. Enhance inter-country collaboration;
2. Adapt, integrate, and scale evidence-based approaches;
3. Enhance the production and utilization of quality data, evidence, assessments, and accountability mechanisms;
4. Accelerate impact through intentional and efficient spending of country resources; and
5. Increase coordination and integration of partner initiatives at the country level.

For more information or to arrange interviews with key participants, please contact:

• Chinedu Anarado | Policy & Advocacy | ADEA | c.anarado@afdb.org
• David Amira | Senior Consultant | Africa Practice | damira@africapractice.com