USAID Providing Millions of Textbooks to Ethiopia

By Steve Peacock

Five-and-a-half million textbooks destined for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders in Ethiopia are being provided through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which today revealed that it awarded a $5.9 million contract to a South African company for the material. Kadimah Education, an affiliate of the Cape Town-based Kadimah Trading Corporation, within 90 days must deliver the books -- whose covers and inside jackets are to be adorned with the Ethiopian flag as well as the logos of USAID and AAMU (Alabama A&M University). AAMU in 2009 received a separate $13 million grant for an Ethiopian literacy project, which the university touted at the time as "part of USAID's broader $600 million Africa Education Initiative."

Source document: Contract award #AID-663-C-12-00010.

FOR ADDITIONAL REGIONAL COVERAGE, SEE THE MONITOR'S AFRICA PAGE and ETHIOPIA PAGE.

FOR FURTHER COVERAGE OF THE U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, PLEASE VISIT THE MONITOR'S USAID PAGE.

ALSO SEE THE MONITOR'S EDUCATION PAGE.