The Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education (ASPBAE) is a regional association of more than 200 organizations and individuals. It works towards promoting quality education for all and transformative and liberating, life-long adult education and learning. It strives to strengthen an Asia-Pacific movement to support community and people’s organizations, national education coalitions, teachers unions, campaign networks, and other civil society groups and institutions in holding governments and the international donor community accountable in meeting education targets and commitments.
Capacity Building Workshop on establish an education coalition
From 4 – 8 February 2016, a regional training program titled “Capacity Building Workshop on Education Policy and Advocacy” was held by Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education (ASPBAE) in Manila, Philippines.
The program was attended by 12 participants including six from Afghanistan, three from the Afghan National Association for Adult Education (ANAFAE), one from ACBAR, the umbrella of national and international NGOs, one from Afghan Women Network (AWN), and one from (UNESCO Kabul). Furthermore two representative form E-Net (Education Network) in Philippines, and four from ASPBAE participated in this workshop.
This initiative was part of a continuing engagement of ANAFAE with the local civil society organizations (CSO) in Afghanistan to provide a platform for genuine dialogue with national CSOs and identify areas for partnerships towards education policy advocacy, especially the creation of common ground to establish an education coalition.
The right to education is a basic right of human being which governments must support through effective laws, education policies and national strategies for all education sectors, but also through appropriate resources.
The Capacity Building Workshop on Education Policy and Advocacy, facilitated by the Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education (ASPBAE) focused on the following objectives:
- To strengthen the rights-based perspectives of CSOs in Afghanistan in advocating for the development of the education sectors and equip them with analytical tools to assert education as a human right
- To share advocacy experiences and strategies to establish new a national education coalition, as already established in many Asian countries and learn from the current advocacy work of ASPBAE
- To update and engage the participants on the global commitments to education under the Sustainable Development Goals SDG4 (focus on Education) and other SDG targets to build common ground, in order to translate them into the national education context.
- To strengthen the links among the CSOs in Afghanistan, and with initiative for the establishment of national education advocacy coalitions in the neighboring countries Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan.
