Botswana will host the seventh Pan African Reading For All Conference in 2011 whose aim is to promote literacy activities in Commonwealth countries.

According to Penny Moanakwena of the Botswana Reading For All, The Pan-African Reading for All (RFA) Conference is one of the most exciting and memorable literacy events on the African continent.

She explained that it is organised bi-annually by the International Reading Association's International Development Committee in Africa (IRA/DAC) and the National Reading Association in the host country.

Moanakwena stated that the conference brings together teachers, teacher educators, lecturers, adult literacy instructors, researchers, librarians, writers, publishers, book sellers, community leaders, policy makers and readers from all over Africa and beyond.

Over the years she explained that the conference has continued to register a steady increase in the number of participants from North America, Europe and Asia, giving it a really global perspective.

She said that the Pan-African Conference has become an important literacy event on the African continent providing platform for policy makers in government and the donor community to interface with literacy professionals at all levels and researchers to share vital knowledge and information on appropriate ways and strategies of delivering literacy and reading skills to the community at the grassroots level.

She said in countries where the conference has been held a number of positive developments have been registered, ranging from rapid growth and development of community libraries, adult literacy classes, children's reading tents, emergence of reading and writing clubs in schools and communities to positive policy pronouncements in favour of the book sector and publishing industry.

The last conference was held in Tanzania. Moanakwena said Tanzania has embraced the Universal Primary Education; it has some of the most innovative adult literacy programmes in Africa; It has embraced the universal primary education policy to the benefit of all the primary school going-age, it has progressive gender policies; the book sector and publishing industry in Tanzania is growing steadily; and the population is committed to schooling and education in general.

"Literacy is not just a mechanical class room affair of dealing with symbols and numerals; it is a way of life which must be integrated into all forms of human activity for it to be of any relevance to the human person," Moanakwena said.

The overall goal of the conference is to create a platform for literacy professionals to share their experiences in literacy research and instruction in the classroom and in communities with a view to identifying challenges faced and strategies through which such challenges can be surmounted in order to improve the delivery of literacy services for sustainable socio-economic transformation and improvement in people's livelihoods.