Rihanna vows to ‘never stop’ fight to put children back in school

Partner countries in the GPE scheme are required to earmark 20 percent of their national budgets to education — a tough goal for developing nations battling jihadists or civil conflicts.

Literacy in sub-Saharan Africa hovers around 65 percent, according to UNESCO, the UN’s culture and education agency, and girls lose out disproportionately.

“People feel education is not that important because you are not losing lives”, Unicef Executive Director Henrietta Fore told AFP on Friday.

“But education must be seen with the same urgency,” she added. Without it, “you lose a child’s future”.

– Development and security –

Ahead of the conference, Macron met Sall at the presidential palace in the Senegalese capital and signed agreements on the sale of two Airbus planes for $214 million (171 million euros) and the creation of a Franco-Senegalese university campus.

Senegalese police made several arrests on Friday afternoon when dispersing a protest march by “France Degage”, a group which wants the former colonial power to reduce its role in Senegal.

Macron has visited Africa six times already in his nine months as president, spending time in several former French colonies and reaffirming support for the Barkhane counter-terror force rooting out jihadists across the Sahel region.

A rapid reaction force of Senegalese troops was recently deployed to Mali as part of a UN peacekeeping mission with France’s blessing, as the international community attempts to contain Al-Qaeda-linked groups wreaking havoc in the unstable desert nation.

Macron will visit the northern Senegalese city of Saint Louis on Saturday, which is threatened by coastal erosion.

He will be accompanied by President Jim Yong Kim of the World Bank, which along with France is financing protective measures for the former capital of what was known until 1902 as French West Africa.