Children at a 'reading tent' project in Tanzania supported by Book Aid International
In her Nobel prize acceptance speech, Doris Lessing used her talents to convey with eloquence and urgency the hunger for books across Africa.
This is a hunger that Book Aid International has been trying to meet for more than 50 years. Last year we sent half a million high-quality books to Africa. We also supported libraries on the continent in purchasing books from African publishers including - where they were available - books in local languages.
But as Lessing's stories of people in Zimbabwe testify, the gap between supply and demand remains unacceptably large.
Literacy - being able to read and write - is widely regarded as a basic human right. Reading also enables people to exercise other rights; to participate in decisions that affect them; to access vital information. And of course it's integral to the right to education.
But without material to read, the right to literacy means nothing in practice. The consequence of this is that many people in Africa, having learnt to read in school or adult literacy classes, actually lose the ability to read once they leave the classroom. Worse still, the shortage of books and learning materials in African schools means that many children will actually leave primary education illiterate.
But despite the central importance of books to securing human rights they are often dismissed as frivolous luxuries. The education sector provides a good example.
With the help of aid from rich countries, the number of children enrolled in school in sub-Sahran Africa has increased significantly. In recent years school enrolment has risen from 77% to 85% - that's almost 10 million more children in school. But extra pupils have meant larger class sizes, fewer resources and poor educational outcomes. As a result, poor literacy and numeracy, high levels of grade repetition and low retention rates are common to primary schools across the continent.
A wholesale absence of reading materials in schools is a key part of this problem. Where textbooks exist, they are commonly shared between up to 16 students. Other materials, like basic readers for primary school students, novels and non-fiction information books are unheard of in many schools.
Books in schools, like medicine in hospitals, need to be recognised as an essential part of a school's infrastructure. Just as Aids activists have successfully argued that anti-HIV drugs are essential for securing the right to health of people living with HIV, we need activists to campaign for books to be regarded as essential tools in securing the right to read.
If books were seen as prerequisites for exercising basic rights, a range of policies would flow. Books would take their place alongside building classrooms, training teachers and abolishing school fees in donor-funded government education plans. Well-stocked public libraries would be seen as essential infrastructure alongside toilets and clinics.
Creating rich, literate environments that allow people in poor countries to access books is possible, but it requires sustained commitment from governments everywhere, to;
· support book publishing and selling; · improve access to information alongside other programs that are delivering basic services; and above all · get books and learning materials into schools and homes.
The right to read of the world's poorest citizens depends on it.