• © UNESCO/N. Burke
• Young girl in class.

Ethiopia joined UNESCO on July 1, 1955. The country is covered by the Addis Ababa Office.

The UNESCO International Institute for Capacity-Building in Africa (IICBA) is based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Its efforts focus on access to quality education, training for teachers and education professionals and HIV/AIDS prevention.

Ethiopia is one of the 35 countries implementing the UNESCO Literacy Initiative for Empowerment (LIFE), a 10-year initiative aimed at achieving the goals of the United Nations Literacy Decade (2003-2012).

The country also participates in the 10-year UNESCO Teacher Training Initiative for sub-Saharan Africa (TTISSA) which will assist the continent’s 46 sub-Saharan countries in restructuring national teacher policies and teacher education.