Kigali, March 6, 2012– Last week at its first All Children Reading Workshop in Kigali, Rwanda, the Global Partnership for Education mobilized education leaders and advocates to improve early grade reading and boost children's literacy in developing countries.

Over the course of the two workshops, 26 Country teams including representatives from Ministries of education, civil society and local donor organizations, discussed innovative solutions to give all children a chance to read and collaborated on the development of an Early Grade Reading Action Plan specific to each country.

These Action Plans will provide clear and concise goals for initiating or scaling up existing early grade reading programs at the country level. These workshops will also provide opportunities for country teams to network and to build mechanisms for support and accountability to push planning into practice.

HRH Princess Laurentien of the Netherlands, UNESCO Special Envoy on Literacy for Development, also joined the workshop and actively participated in several discussions with delegations. Moreover, the princess visited two local primary schools and the Kigali Public Library to witness some of the Rwandan work on literacy development. She closed the Thursday workshop program by leading an interactive session with all participants. Among other things, the Princess challenged the country delegations to think about ways to make literacy development relevant to other societal players and to create a demand for improved reading and writing skills.

The All Children Reading Workshop came at a critical time as 200 million children in developing countries still struggle to read even basic words. Early grade reading has become a priority for the international aid community and, at the Global Partnership for Education Replenishment Conference last November, global players pledged to support children's literacy and early grade reading.

Luis Crouch, Global Good Practice Team Coordinator and Lead Education Specialist at the Global Partnership for Education emphasized that "the All Children Reading Workshops are a major turning point to reduce children's illiteracy. Never before had a multilateral organization made a quantitative commitment of this magnitude to make reading a reality for millions of children. Our goal is ambitious but attainable: cutting in half the number of non-reading children in 20 developing countries over the next 5 years."

Global Literacy Leaders and Advocates discussions during this workshop focused on key thematic areas in early grade reading including:

• Teacher Training and Supervision
• Campaigns and Policy Dialogue
• Curriculum and Lesson Plans
• Assessment Tools  and Impact Evaluations
• Reading Materials
• Mother Tongue Instruction and Language Transition

The workshop fostered a dynamic interaction between participants as they shared country experiences and best practices on early grade reading programs and practices.

Patrick Collins, Director of Basic Education for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) commented. "This opportunity to come together with entire country teams from across Africa is unprecedented, at the workshop we have been able to have a complete dialogue with all of the literacy players in many of the countries we work in. Here we can have one group dialogue, and come to significant agreements, before, we had one-off conversations, and then tried to bring things together. USAID hopes that the gains made between our fellow Literacy Advocates and Leaders in each country gives us a clear way forward to reach our goal of improving the reading skills of 100 million children by 2015, only by working together like we have at this workshop can we hope to achieve this."

Country Teams worked together to sketch holistic action plans that outlined goals and roles of each organization, as well as a master approach to literacy for the country. Country teams shared their different country approaches with each other and refined their plans through-out the week.

Fatimata Ba, Director of National Institute of Studies and Action for the Development of Education (INEADE) said "The Global Partnership for Education got it right: Yes, a conference was needed in Africa, with African technicians and experts in charge of education to show the importance of reading from an early age, and specially demonstrate that since education is the key to development, an educational system cannot perform well unless reading skills are mastered."

The most important outcome of the conference is that Country Teams can now return to their home countries and benefit from the relationships, technical insights, and frameworks created at the workshop and continue the dialogue needed to solidify the actions discussed at the workshop to set their countries on a path to ensure all children are reading.

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For more information on the Global Partnership for Education and the All Children Reading Workshops, please contact Yann Doignon, ydoignon@globalpartnership.org , +1 202-473-3239  or visit the All Children Reading Workshops website