- The AECID (Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation) in a joint program for teacher training. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation (Directorate General for Africa) in its scholarship program for young diplomats. The Ministry of Defense to facilitate Spanish language learning for African military personnel.
- The Women for Africa Foundation to promote the creation of updated educational materials and facilitate access for African women to all initiatives. Casa Africa in the Africa-Spain Hispanists Meetings.
The Cervantes Institute currently operates 11 centers in the Maghreb region: in Morocco (Marrakech, Casablanca, Rabat, Tangier, Tetuan, and Fez), Egypt (Cairo and Alexandria), Tunisia (Tunis), and Algeria (Algiers and Oran). Additionally, there are smaller extensions in cities such as Kenitra, Meknes, Nador, Agadir, Al Hoceima, Chefchaouen, Larache (all in Morocco), and Mostaganem (Algeria). Senegal is one of the 19 sub-Saharan African countries where students can obtain the DELE (Diploma of Spanish as a Foreign Language). The interest in the Spanish language, and its certification through the official diploma, is heightened by the Senegalese government's funding of a public education system that provides free Spanish instruction to over 240,000 students.
In the region, there are a total of 23 DELE examination centers spread across Cape Verde, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mauritania, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Togo, Djibouti, and Zimbabwe. Additionally, there are nine SIELE (International Service for Spanish Language Assessment) examination centers in Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea Conakry, Mali, Nigeria, and Senegal.
Sub-Saharan Africa has over one and a half million Spanish students, making it the third-largest region globally in terms of Spanish learners, constituting 6.5% of the total number of people learning Spanish. Costa de Marfil (Ivory Coast) leads the region in Spanish learners, ranking fifth globally behind the United States, Brazil, France, and Italy. Over 566,000 Ivorian students study Spanish in institutes, high schools, universities, private educational centers, and teacher training schools. Following Ivory Coast are Benin (with 412,515 Spanish students), Senegal (205,000), Cameroon (193,018), Gabon (167,410), and Equatorial Guinea (128,895), respectively, among the top 20 countries worldwide with the highest number of Spanish students (data from the 2020 Yearbook "Spanish in the World" by the Cervantes Institute).
Equatorial Guinea, a former Spanish colony that maintains Spanish as an official language, stands out with its own language academy, two Spanish cultural centers (in Malabo and Bata), and a pool of scholars and writers preserving Spanish culture in the territory. Between 85-90% of Equatoguineans have Spanish as a second language, and 74% speak and write it proficiently. There is even a generation of speakers for whom Spanish is their first language. Africa is the continent with the highest linguistic density, boasting around 2,000 different languages south of the Maghreb, accounting for 30% of the world's languages. Spanish is considered a prestigious language and is part of the educational programs in many countries. The demolinguistic and ELE (Spanish as a Foreign Language) learning studies promoted by the Cervantes Institute highlight the flourishing situation of Spanish in sub-Saharan Africa. This geographical area holds immense growth potential, as evidenced by numerous initiatives undertaken by Casa Africa.
However, many teachers and educational institutions in these countries operate with limited technological resources and teaching materials. There is a need to create new African materials that adapt to different contexts and regional realities and incorporate the linguistic variety of Equatoguinean Spanish and the literary production in the Spanish language from African origins.
