Currently, Africa stands out as the world's poorest and most educationally deprived region. Where communities are empowered to identify their own needs and priorities, participate in decisions about resource allocation, and hold education providers accountable for ensuring that children receive a minimum acceptable standard of education, schooling is most likely to result in education. This is especially the case in Sub-Saharan Africa, where communities are usually rural, often dispersed, and have heterogeneous needs and priorities. Education is always a joint endeavor, and education development, at the speed and level needed, cannot take place in Africa except through education partnerships between governments and communities. At the same time, because of communities' heterogeneity, there is no blueprint for participation. Community financing should not be expected to substitute for the core public funding needed to create the basic conditions for learning in every school. Education partnerships are most likely to succeed where equitable funding is provided for all primary schools, and greater authority is devolved to the local level to allocate these resources and participate in school management. Effective decentralization to the community level requires fundamental changes in the cost structure of education, and changes in budget procedures that allow resources to flow rapidly and efficiently from the center to the school level. The World Bank has a critical role in assisting African country efforts to develop viable community-based approaches that safeguard equity, promote equality and efficiency, and fit coherently within wider governance structures. To perform this role, the Bank must broaden its project focus and place a greater emphasis on project participation, cost effectiveness, and replicability. (Contains a 7 boxes, 2 tables, and 104 references.) (BT)