Cardinal Ambongo urges African countries to invest more in education.

Vatican News with Marcel Ariston Blé – Abidjan.

After three days of work at the Catholic University of West Africa - Abidjan University Unit - “the African Congress on the Restitution of the African Educational Pact in the spirit of Pope Francis” closed last Sunday with a call to do more to improve and encourage investment in Africa’s education.

«Despite the discouraging news coming from some parts of Africa, we are firmly convinced that God is at work in our continent and that Africa cannot become a continent of despair,” declared Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo, Metropolitan Archbishop of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He was in Abidjan as Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) President and chair of the Congress.

Imagining a “new Africa,” the SECAM President called on African states to “invest more in the education of our young people, who are not only the future of our societies, but are already present with us.”

Quality education for peaceful coexistence in Africa

In the face of the various ills afflicting Africa, including “corruption, conflict and poor governance, which are unfortunately mortgaging the future of its youth,” the Congolese Cardinal proposed the formation of “an educational alliance that would respond to the new challenges of our African societies.” Such an alliance consisting of “our families, our Small Christian Communities, our lay apostolic associations and Christian movements working in the spirit of synodality and in synergy … would become an educational community that can carve out a path for the future of our African youth despite the desert of these times.”

To achieve this, Cardinal Ambongo continued, “We must commit ourselves to raising all the valleys and lowering all the mountains and hills we encounter as obstacles to quality education in Africa ... We must also dismantle obstacles that threaten education and our children’s future,” the President of SECAM urged.

Renew the Contribution of Catholic Church Education

For three days, Catholic education stakeholders from Africa’s national episcopal conferences and conferences of major religious superiors, as well as other stakeholders from countries of the North, gathered in Abidjan at the initiative of the Religions and Societies International Foundation and its partners to reflect on putting the African Education Pact into practice.

In the opinion of Professor Jean-Paul Niyigena, General Secretary of the Foundation and Consultor to the Dicastery for Culture and Education, the participants at the end of the conference were more than determined to work together to strengthen and renew the contribution of the Catholic Church in the field of education.