Empowering local actors to drive local book market reforms

The Book Alliance envisions a future in which a robust local publishing industry supports the needs of even the most underserved children. An effective supply of books requires high-quality title development, access to those titles by printers and publishers, and a functioning supply chain to deliver books to their potential readers.

The Book Alliance’s flagship support for publishers and existing publishing associations will seed the development of storybooks in neglected languages and improve both the quantity and quality of supplementary reading materials. The Book Alliance makes strategic investments—training and technical assistance—led by local partners to support local creation of culturally appropriate titles that will one day populate classrooms.

Multi national PARTNERSHIPs

Global Book Alliance steering committee members USAID and the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) have partnered to work with local authors, publishers, and development partners involved in education in Africa. The partnership supports these stakeholders to share experience and to coordinate activities to facilitate development of children’s books that are locally relevant, born accessible, and written in local languages.

Support for Sound Book Policy

ADEA recently hosted a workshop on National Book and Reading Policies for Africa to explore a Continental Framework to support quality education by enabling country-led strategies to address challenges within the local book publishing industry.

Training for Publishers and Printers

In late 2018, ADEA organized two workshops for authors and potential authors in Uganda, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, and Guinea using a book creation software that makes it make it easy to create simple books and translate them into multiple local languages.