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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