Ethiopia - Our Projects

Our Regional Office in Ethiopia

Head of Office: Gerhard Quinke
Address: dvv international Regional Office
c/o Institute for Curriculum Development and Research (ICDR)
P.O. Box 34743, Addis Abeba
Tel: +251-11-123 22 39 / 40 /41
Fax: +251- 11 123 61 17
e-mail: dvv-international@ethionet.et
www.dvv-international.org.et

Contact person at dvv international in Bonn:
Jesco Weickert
e-mail: weickert@dvv-international.de   

Integrated Women's Empowerment Program (IWEP)

P.O.Box 34743
Addis Ababa
Tel: Tel:  + 251 -11 618 3424, 618 3426, 618 3429, 618 3434, 618 3435
Fax: + 251 -11 618 3432
e-mail: iwep@dvv-international.org.et

In Ethiopia, dvv international mainly focuses its work in the area of employment and income-oriented non-formal education and literacy. Included in this are the education and training of teaching and management professionals for AE as well as policy advice and technical exchange.

Groundwork

In the three-year period to 2013, innovative models of poverty-reducing AE from various governmental and non-governmental partners will be supported. These models are in accordance with the respective socio-economic and ecological conditions. The project will support this configuration in an advisory capacity. However, the accompanying training, especially of female teachers in AE, remains essential.

In order to secure the sustainability of efforts at the level of the direct target groups, wherever possible initiatives will be supported that address the aspect of the application of acquired skills. More experience must be collected with both pilot projects and research in the area of post-literacy or the literate environment.

Integrated Women's Empowerment Programme (IWEP)

The Dutch Embassy in Addis Ababa (Royal Netherlands Embassy), through the Integrated Women's Empowerment Program (IWEP), finances an extensive learning project which owes its important practical impetus to the AE work in Ethiopia. IWEP develops, tests and implements a comprehensive approach to the empowerment of poor women and their households as a contribution to poverty reduction. The integrated approach combines three traditionally separate components of Functional Adult Literacy - FAL, the livelihoods skills and non-formal vocational training with support for entrepreneurial activities. The main IWEP target group is 31,000 women. The IWEP concept has already had spillover effects on other projects. Teaching materials developed by IWEP are in use in some regions in a locally adapted form. dvv international is expected to implement IWEP by the end of 2012. A gradual transfer of the project management to the care of the regional AE - accompanied by expert advice - has, in some instances, already started.

Progress at the macro level

There has been a national AE strategy since 2008 (National Adult Education Strategy - NAES) in which the necessary guidance for the development of functional literacy (FAL) has been given by governmental actors and civil society as well as the donor community. A milestone in the support of AE is that it was possible to get other ministries such as Agriculture, Women and Health into the boat and for the first time to create multi-sectoral consensus.

At the end of 2009, dvv international was asked by the Ministry of Education to develop a proposal for the national expansion of FAL. Accordingly, in early 2010, dvv international took upon itself the challenge of preparing a Master Plan for Adult Education. Its basis was a week-long collection of information in all regions of Ethiopia regarding the educational deficiencies of the adult population and the existing structures potentially useful for spreading the program offers. From the beginning on, the group of government players was widened to include the Ministries of Commerce and Small Business. The objectives of the Master Plan were included in the five-year education plan of the state.

The AE plan is entitled: Learning for Life: Master Plan for Adult Education in Ethiopia, 2010/11-2019/2020. The responsibility for its implementation lies with the National Education Ministry and the regional education authorities. Other ministries and non-governmental cooperation partners will be key players in the implementation of the ambitious goals. For an initial two-year period, the aim is to reach 9.1 million participants.

To institutionalise sustainable structures for this process, dvv international will support - in the sense of the NAES and the Master Plan - for example at local level, inter-ministerial and trans-sectoral steering bodies for AE that will also take responsibility for the mobilisation of resources.