The Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) is a forum for policy dialogue on education. Its Working Group on Books and Learning Materials works extensively on issues pertaining to literacy, publishing, the use of mother-tongue languages, and the importance of national book policies. The Working Group page will be found at http://www.adeanet.org/en/working-groups/books-and-learning-materials.
Saide’s African Storybook initiative provides openly licensed stories for use, and tools for the translation and creation of stories, which are in turn openly licensed.
Bloom enables people to write and print books in their own language or those adapted from other languages. Bloom was designed with new computer users in mind and has features to guide them in simple book making, so people need far less training than alternatives such as Word, Publisher, or InDesign. Bloom enables communities to create the volume of early grade reading materials needed to help children become successful and excited readers.
Book Dash is a South African non-profit volunteer organization, established in 2014 as a project among friends who wanted to use their publishing skills to create accessible, well-written, easily translatable storybooks. Book Dash creates content by hosting events where a crew of creative professionals get together for twelve hours to create openly licensed storybooks.
CODE is a Canadian NGO focused on advancing literacy and education in some of the world's regions in greatest need. CODE establishes engaging learning environments through the development and publishing of locally authored and designed children books, training teachers and teacher-librarians, resourcing libraries, and distributing high-quality reading materials. CODE works with affiliates in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, and Tanzania.
Library For All Ltd is an Australian non-profit organisation with a mission to help the world read. We source and create culturally-diverse books and educational material, then deliver our age-appropriate, curated literacy resources to readers in need via an innovative digital library app.
Mango Tree Literacy Lab is a Ugandan NGO, based in Lira in northern Uganda, dedicated to promoting reading, writing, teaching and publishing in African languages. Mango Tree Literacy Lab provides African educators with teaching tools and methods that make literacy instruction effective and fun. Mango Tree Literacy Lab creates and prints books in Leblango, so children have stories that remind them of their own lives.
The Molteno Institute for Language and Literacy (MILL), an NGO based in South Africa, produces innovative, research-based language and literacy learning and teaching materials in South Africa’s indigenous African languages. It creates training courses that incorporate modern teaching methodologies, model good classroom practice, and provide for classroom monitoring and support. MILL shares all its educational resources and content freely under a Creative Commons licence.
Room to Read is a US non-profit organization focused on girls' education and children's literacy in Asia and Africa.
StoryWeaver is a digital repository of openly licensed multilingual stories for children from Pratham Books. The platform allows users or create, print and translate stories. Although Storyweaver launched with a focus on books in Indian languages, it is now a platform for stories in languages from all over the world.
Sub-Saharan Publishers is an indigenous Ghanaian publishing house specializing primarily in African children's books for use in Ghana and around the world.
The Global Book Alliance is an international effort involving multiple stakeholders working to transform book development, procurement, and distribution to ensure that no child is without books. By drawing together the largest public-sector investors, the Alliance can ensure that these public funds are invested in low cost, high-quality books, while strengthening private publishers who will sustain the supply of books.
The Global Digital Library (GDL) will collect existing high-quality open educational reading resources, and make them available on web, mobile and for print. It will also facilitate translation and localization of these resources to more than 300 languages. The goal is to make at least 50,000 titles in 100 languages available on the GDL platform by the end of 2020. Initially, the GDL will support access to high quality early-grade reading resources.
The Global Partnership for Education (GPE) is a multi-stakeholder partnership and funding platform that aims to strengthen education systems in developing countries to dramatically increase the number of children who are in school and learning. GPE brings together developing countries, donors, international organizations, civil society, teacher organizations, the private sector and foundations.
The International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) is a non-profit organization which represents an international network of people from all over the world who are committed to bringing books and children together. IBBY is composed of 75 national sections all over the world. It represents countries with well-developed book publishing and literacy programmes, and other countries with only a few dedicated professionals who are doing pioneer work in children's book publishing and promotion. In Sub-Saharan Africa, IBBY has national sections in Ghana, Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
UNESCO is a strong proponent for using mother-tongue languages in early education and for the celebration of annual mother-tongue language days around the world. This page links to UNESCO resources on this topic.