Nairobi, Nov 23: The World Bank said today an umbrella group of UN agencies, relief organisations and African countries believed better education for children could rescue Africa from the tragedy of AIDS.
"There is a clear urgency for the education sector to act because there is a window of hope for today's children, aged between six to 14, who are not yet engaged in sexual activity," the World Bank said in a statement.
"Above all, education is central to the prevention of Aids. But its potential as a 'social vaccine' has not been realised because education is mainly focused on small scale prevention efforts that lack a coherent strategy to respond," the statement said.
The statement is the result of a one-week meeting in Nairobi between the Inter-Agency Task Team (IATT) on Aids, which groups all humanitarian UN agencies, Ireland Aid, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Education International and the World Bank.

The meeting was also attended by officials from Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.



The statement urged African countries to "build capacities to respond, with timely actions, to prevent school-age children and teachers from being infected with HIV".



The World Bank said the killer pandemic "had stalled the ability of many countries to provide access to effective education and had exacerbated problems with student enrolment, quality of education offered, teacher training and absenteesm due to illness".


Bureau Report