Mauritania

Literacy rates in 1985—among the lowest in Sub-Saharan Africa at roughly 20 percent—prompted the government to examine ways to establish a more educated base of workers. As a result, Mauritania established the State Secretariat of Culture, Information, and Telecommunications (SSCIT) to oversee the nation's largest adult literacy campaign to date. By increasing the number of classes offered, as well as the expanding the areas in which they were offered, the SSCIT saw literacy rates increase to 52 percent for adult males (older than the age of 15) and 31 percent for adult females in 1997.