Benchmarks and Financing for Adult Literacy

In 2005, Action Aid and the Global Campaign for Education undertook the largest-ever survey to systematise experience of effective methods in adult literacy and the cost of quality literacy programmes: 67 successful literacy programmes in 35 countries have been analysed and then developed into 12 core benchmarks in consultation with 142 respondents in 47 countries. These are designed as a starting point for policy dialogue between governments, funding agencies, NGOs, and adults who have been deprived of their right to education. As costs cannot be established in isolation of a clear set of principles concerning how programmes should work, the calculation of the costs of adult literacy served as a crucial part of this process.