25 widely on the continent, with North Africa performing better and SubSaharan Africa requiring the greatest improvements. According to the UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS, 2019), 13 out of 15 countries in the world with more than 30% of primary school-age girls not in school are in Sub-Saharan Africa. South Sudan (67% of primary school-age girls out of school), Equatorial Guinea (55%) and Eritrea (49%) rank most poorly and show worsening trends. UIS Factsheet 48, from 2018, shows that in Sub-Saharan Africa, 35.1% of girls and 29.6% boys of primary, lower secondary and upper secondary school-age are not in school (UIS, 2018). Africa’s population is getting younger, which means that the continent’s labour force will continue growing faster than that of any other continent. However, taking advantage of this youth dividend requires improvement of education systems, both at primary and secondary levels, to equip youths with the necessary skills and capacity to contribute to green growth. Africa’s youth (15-24 years) literacy rate is steadily increasing, but greater progress is required in Sub-Saharan Africa, where it is just 75% (2016) compared with the global average of 91%. The adult illiteracy rate in Africa is 36% (UIS, 2018). North Africa performs best, with a literacy rate of 90% (in 2016). While enrolment rates are rising on the continent, the average education score as measured by the Ibrahim Index of African Governance shows a decline since 2013 in 27 countries, indicating that the quality of education is not meeting the needs of the economy (AGI Brookings, 2019). UIS Factsheet 48 shows that in SubSaharan Africa, a large majority of children (76.5% of girls and 81.9% of boys) attend primary school. Fewer children attend lower secondary school (61.2% of girls and 65.5% of boys) and less than half of all children continue to upper secondary school (38.7% of girls and 45.7% of boys; UIS, 2019). As the population of school-age children grows, the demand for teachers is rising fast. To achieve universal primary and secondary education by 2030, SubSaharan Africa will need 7.6 million new teachers (UIS, 2019). As of March 16, 2021, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Africa amounted to around 3,000,000 (WHO, 2021). South Africa was the most severely affected country. To counter the pandemic’s effect on public health and health systems, governments, including in Africa, have attempted to counter the pandemic’s effect on public health and health systems by developing new public health policies, with varying degrees of success. Tunisia’s public health strategy during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic was exemplary, and the country succeeded in containing the virus better than many of its neighbours, mainly thanks to its existing hard and soft infrastructures (GIZ, 2021). However, as of January 9, 2021, a total of 157,514 confirmed cases in Tunisia (which makes it the third most affected country in Africa; GIZ, 2021), attest to the fact that the Tunisian authorities have been less successful in coping with the new COVID-19 wave, addressing its economic effects and alleviating the pressure on its health system. In addition, concerning education, various African countries have responded to the COVID-19 crisis by closing schools. As schools are in lockdown, children living in poverty without the technology to access e-learning programmes are deprived of an education. Children in unstable homes are also more exposed to neglect, violence, exploitation, and abuse (UNDP, 2020). In Tunisia, the education of millions of students has been severely disrupted by the COVID-19 crisis, as teachers’ unions have refused to provide distance learning, which has led the authorities to proclaim the end of the school year (GIZ, 2021). However, Tunisia has demonstrated its adaptability throughout the COVID-19 crisis, accelerating its digitalisation processes, including in education. These changes may have implications for the country’s energy consumption which cannot yet be quantified. Access to drinking water and improved sanitation Along with SDG 7 (access to affordable energy) and access to quality social infrastructure, achieving SDG 6 (universal access to safely managed drinking water and improved sanitation) is recognised as a key precondition for improved health, education, and economic growth. Currently, about 300 million Africans lack access to safe water for drinking and 700 million lack access to adequate sanitation facilities. With the exception of parts of northern and southern Africa, water access on the continent is limited primarily due to economic reasons (accessing water is either time consuming or expensive) rather than due to physical water scarcity. A lack of granular data makes it difficult to assess progress made in expanding access to safe drinking water sources. According to the UN (2015), in North Africa more than 90% of the population now have safe drinking water. Challenges persist in Sub-Saharan Africa, where access rates remain at around 60%. In the past decades, notable advancements in expanding access to improved water sources and sanitation have been seen in Ethiopia, Senegal, Rwanda, and South Africa. Girls and women in rural households in Africa still collectively spend millions of hours every year searching for and collecting water for drinking and cooking; time which could otherwise be spent on productive activities, contributing to better health and higher economic productivity in their communities. In addition, various other water-related challenges, Climate change —core to the African Development Bank’s strategy
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