Mozambique needs $150 mln a year for education
Source: Reuters
MAPUTO, July 3 (Reuters) - Mozambique is looking to donor nations for at least $150 million a year to expand its education network, its prime minister said on Tuesday. Luisa Diogo told Reuters the funds would be needed to meet the southern African country's U.N Millennium Development Goals, a global campaign which includes fighting poverty and improving education with a 2015 target date. The funds would be invested in infrastructure projects and teacher training programmes, said Diogo. "This money is very urgent, actually we should have had it yesterday because we still have over one million school-age children out of schools," she said after opening a meeting on funds from the International Development Association (IDA), the soft loans arm of the World Bank. Illiteracy rates are above 60 percent, she said. Diogo said the government would also tap the private sector to assist in the education programme. Mozambique, which emerged in 1992 from decades of civil war to become one of Africa's best performing economies, is a major recipient of aid. In June, the World Bank's private-sector lender, the International Finance Corp., included Mozambique in a $50 million programme to encourage funding for private schools.
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