Africa Publishing Innovation Fund (APIF): Ideas to keep African Children learning and communities connected

In 2019, an estimated 100 million African school-age children were designated ‘out-of-school’, the highest numbers in the world. COVID-19 has dramatically worsened that already bleak picture because school closures have cut off any children who cannot access education remotely. Though the new figure is not yet known, it is clear that a generation of children will fall by the wayside unless decisive steps are taken to address the systemic, infrastructural and cultural hurdles that are preventing African children from learning. That would be a huge setback for African development, with potentially disastrous consequences in years to come. In 2021, its second year of operation, the Africa Publishing Innovation Fund, an initiative led by the Geneva-based International Publishers Association, turned its attention to the remote learning challenge in Africa. A decision was taken to sponsor locally-owned projects to keep students learning and give disadvantaged communities ways to access books and premises for community cohesion, skills development, studying and reading. The APIF is not the solution, but it is a sincere attempt by publishers to address some of the problems within the overarching African education emergency.