West and Central Africa UNGEI Annual Report 2010
Global Advisory Committee Meeting
Paris, 31 January 2011

Introduction

In West and Central Africa, 20.564.069[1] millions of children are still out of school and over half of them are girls. The GPI in the region is estimated at .89 and 6 out of 24 countries still have their GPI below .85. Some countries in post-conflict situation, such as Chad andCAR) present the lowest GPI in the region. Only fourcountries (Ghana, Gabon, Senegal, and Mauritania) have reached gender parity. The majority of schools in the region do not offer proper conditions for girls’ well-being ( as an example among others,20% of schools are equipped with sanitation for girls).The issue of quality education as a mean to promote effective gender equity isa real challenge to all countries in this region.

Those challenges, in a global context of economic crisis, call for strong and courageous decisions from governments and development partners to effectively tackle the persistent barriers against girl’s empowerment and development. Sensible progresses should be acknowledged and many countries are moving forward both at the policy and programmatic levels to offer more adequate responses in favor of gender equity at schools and in the global Society. Partnerships in favor of girl’s education are getting stronger but the pace is different according to countries and big variations are noted within countries. In most WCAR countries, inequities are still significant; gaps are big between the lowest and the highest quintiles of economic wealth in terms of access to quality education. Poverty and gender intersect and affect girl’s schooling, achievement, completion and participation.

This report is submitted on behalf of the WCAR UNGEI as input into 31 January 2011 UNGEI Global Advisory Committee Meeting. This report covering the entire period of 2010 follows the reporting guidelines of December 2009 and is aligned with the UNGEI Monitoring and Evaluation Framework of September 2010 addressing three key outcomes: (a) Policy Frameworks; (b) Best Practices, and (c) Effective Partnership. The West and Central Africa region covers 24 countries characterised by their relative vulnerability and instability. The report mainly summarizes the achievements and challenges at the country/regional level organized and framed according to the outcomes, outputs and indicators contained in the framework as relevant. Given space restrictions, contents of the report are summarized and often presented in bullet point. Further details are available upon request.

1-Progress made in 2010

Outcome 1: National level policy frameworks promote girls’ education and gender equality

At the regional level,technical support has been given to countries which are going throughthe FTI process such as (Togo, Congo, DRC, Guinea Bissau and Ivory Coast) to ensure that gender programming and budgeting is taken into consideration in the review of the education sector plan and other related development frameworks.

In WCA countries, much progress has been made at the policy level to take into consideration MDG2 and 3.In most countries, the PRSP and the Education Sector plan make very clear provision about promotion of girls’ education and are in phase with MDGs and EFA goals.

  • In Benin, girls’ education is mainstreamed as a top priority on the path to reach MDG and EFA goals, through the ELP strategy.
  • In Chad, a Ten-Year Plan of Education and Literacy is being developpedand includes a strategy for the acceleration of girls’ schooling. Micro-plans related to girls’ education are being implemented in regions where the GER is very low.
  • In Mali, in March 2010, Girls’ education has been officially integrated as a component of the sectoral plan 2010-2012 with the related budget; a strategic triennal plan for the acceleration of gurl’s schooling has been endorsed by development partners.
  • In DRC, following the UNGEI Dakar Conference, the gender dimension has been integrated in the Interim Plan for Basic Education; gender has been taken into account by the emergency clusters.
  • In Nigeria, advocacy at policy level resulted in the allocation19% of the Education budget to girls’ education in some states.
  • In Senegal, significant resources have been mobilized with the Spanish, CIDA and Italian Cooperation for Girl’s’ Education within the framework of the National Decennal Plan of Education.

In two countries, laws and legal norms have been adopted for the protection of young girls within the school system:

  • In Nigeria, a law that prohibits hawking & withdrawal of girls from schools has been enacted by several states. This allows the return of girls withdrawn from school.
  • In the Gambia, a code of conduct was adopted to fight against gender-based violence in schools; law to reintegrate pregnant schoolgirls in the school system.

Several countries are working for better alignment of UNGEI partners’ initiatives with national education reforms.

Outcome 2: Best practices in facilitating girls’ education and gender equality are known and institutionalized

Regional level: A joint study on violence in school settings with a component on gender-based violence has been carried out and results were presented at the UNGEI Conference. The production of the related materials for the dissemination of the results is the outcome of a collaborative intake of resources.One big outcome of that study was the production of an inventory of good practices to address school and gender-based violence in the region. This will be the basis for a more comprehensive assessment of existing initiatives.

An UNGEI website is functional since 2008 and offers a space to UNGEI partners to share their experience. The number of visitors of this site has more than doubled since 2009 (from 2,273 guests to 6,073 in 2010).

Country level:

WCAR countries have made some progress in terms of knowledge building and sharing ongender equality in education as well as on approaches & strategies for promoting girls’ education and empowerment.

  • Countries like Senegal, Burkina Faso,Mali, Ivory Coast carried out a study on violence in schools; a joint restitution of the regional and the national study on school violence was done in Abidjan, offering an occasion for stronger and wider cooperation between sectors and stakeholders.
  • In Nigeria, special efforts were provided for improved recording/documenting & disseminating good practices on girls’ education by the state chapters.
  • Benin has started a gender audit and Liberia is going through the process.

Outcome 3: UNGEI facilitates an effective partnership for girls’ education

3.1 UNGEI partner capacity is strenghtened

Regional level:

There has been an effortto facilitate information sharing between countries and to streghten their capacity for better integration and analysis of the gender dimension in planning and programming. Three regionally initiated workshops on Education in Emergencies (EIE) and ECD integrated the gender aspects for more gender-sensitive programming.Support is being given upon request tocountries (Central African Republic, Mali, Chad, and Ivory Coast) for the roll out of those trainings for effective gender sensitive planning and programming.

Country level:

Several WCAR countries have made progress in terms of capacity development for gender mainstreaming.

  • In the Gambia, national UNGEI partners participated in training on gender-based programm analysis; an evaluation of the gender training, provided for over 600 teachers focusing mainly on gender stereotyping in classroom discourse and in the use of curriculum materials, is being planned for 2011 in that country.
  • Burkina Faso has developed a girls’ achievement programme based on the results of a rapid assessment of barriers to girls’ education
  • In Senegal, a gender training guide was developed with a component to deal with gender based-violence.

There is a strong demand for capacity building in gender audit and gender budgeting in the region.

3.2- Development efforts targeting girls’ education and gender equality are coordinated and enhanced through collaboration with UNGEI

Regional UNGEI institutional members (UNESCO, ECOWAS, International NGOs, UNICEF) worked together to support the organization of the UNGEI Conference in Dakar. A new partnership has started with the platform of regional NGOs working in Education with a focus on gender-based violence. New contacts have been established with the international network of francophone countries “Gender in Action” for advocacy and knowledge building/sharing on gender-based violence at school. A planning meeting held in December 2010 has allowed those new partners to join the network and to open new perspectives to strenghten the regional partnership around the issue of gender-based violence in school settings in the WCA region. An action plan has been set up for 2011 and will allow developing an advocacy campaign on the aforementioned issue within a multi-sectoral approach (Education,Protection, Health/Nutrition, and HIV/AIDS). The network of ECOWAS Women Parliamentaries has expressed its interest in joining the network and working with the member states.

Country level:Sixteen (16) countries have an active girls’ education network with or without the UNGEI banner. New partnerships have been created in Mali and in Chad since 2009; one of the newly created networks (Senegal in 2008) has been very active in its structuring process (coordination at local levels). In Nigeria, new NGEI chapters were created in 2 states in 2010. In Burkina Faso, observatories of girls’ attendance and retention in schools were implemented in the Eastern and the South East part of the country. A new UNGEI network will be launched early 2011 in Cameroon.

2-Main challenges:

Most countries in the WCA region are confronted to many challenges as regards UNGEI network functioning at national level:

  • Leadership and coordination (lack of a clear definition of roles and responsibilities which generates tension and conflicts;no real leading power of gender units in MoE)
  • Maintaining the momentum created by the partnership around the UNGEI Conference because of the lack of financial resources
  • Translation of the mandate of national UNGEI networks into a relevant action plan (usually too ambitious but not enough focused at the strategic level)
  • Getting government to commit to actions pledged upon
  • Lack of a comprehensive capacity-building program at different levels and lack of relevant materials on gender equality in education
  • Lack of sexo-specific data in education and other related sectors, and lack of qualitative analysis of gender equity in its various dimensions
  • Mainstreaming gender issues at policy level with other sectors
  • Persistance of social barriers, especially in getting women’s full participation and lack ofintegrated communication plans for girls’ education and women empowerment

At the regional level, one of the main challenges remains the coordination and theshare of resources for more effective responses and support to countries.There is also a multiplicity of partnership platforms with a risk of overlapping: for instance, the issue of violence is addressed through different sectoral partnerships and there is no link between those sectors, which creates an inefficient use of existing resources. On the other hand, some products and opportunities created through partnerships (for instance, the WCARO UNGEI Website) are not effectively used by UNGEI partners to promote their initiatives in favor of girls’ education.There is still a need to make more operational our cooperation with the African regional bodies (ECOWAS, ECCAS, and AU) to better influence policies at the state level.

3-Opportunities:

There is a conjunction of initiatives and new developments wich create a more favorable environment for the promotion of girls’ education and gender equality in the region.

  • The new focus on equity at all levels (global, regional and national) creates an opportunity to look deeper at the gender equity issue and its interelation with other types of inequities, for more adequate responses, including social protection measures in favor of girl’s schooling
  • The availaibility of new tools such as the gender equity and inclusion tool, produced by the EFA/FTI Secretariat in collaboration with UNGEI,is useful in helping countries develop gender-sensitive and more inclusive education sector plans and to assess them. A Gender Pocket Guide and another one on Inclusive Education have been published in 2010 by the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergency (INEE) and were proposed to countries to ensure that the gender dimension is taken into consideration in the preparedness plan and response to emergency situations.
  • Following the Dakar UNGEI Conference and in line with the MDG summit recommendations,there is a strong interest among donors and regional partners to support knowledge building/sharing for evidence-based decision making as regards gender equality in education.The issue of violence in education seetings will help building bridges between sectors and institutions for streghtening the protective role of schools.
  • The forthcoming EFAWG meeting to be held in Paris end January 2011 --which will look at the effect of violence on education in fragile states -- is very relevant to the WCAR context and will offer the occasion to put this important issue higher in international, regional and national agendas.

The Way Forward

At the regional level, the year 2011 will put the focus on the following:

  • The development of a regional multi-sectoral advocacy strategy to fight against violence -- with a focus on gender-based violence -- in education settings and for promoting the protective role of schools to create safe and enabling learning environments for each child, especially for girls
  • An inventory of all existing tools within partner organizations to propose a set of tools which will support countries for capacity building in terms of gender planning and programming with a special attention to gender budgeting
  • The organization of a regional UNGEI focal point meeting on the new strategic result framework and to strenghten country teams’ability to work at the upstream level to promote national gender sensitive policies and strategies
  • Joint support to countries for buildingmore gender-sensitive information system; to collect and share evidence on promising initiatives which could be put to scale
  • Deeper attention will be paid to gender equity in fragile states and within emergency situations, early recovery and post-conflict contexts

At the national level, following the UNGEI Conference in Dakar,participating countries producedplans of action using the UNGEI result framework. Emphasis will be put on the following:

  • Strenghten the strategic role of the UNGEI network through the action plans which put an emphasis on upstream work to ensure effective policy change in favor of gender equality, in normal and emergency situations
  • On the basis of a capacity gap analysis, design and implement a capacity development plan on gender equality in education including planners, educators and community organizations
  • Promote quality education (revision of curricula and school materials, creation of safe and enabling learning spaces) in favor of girls’ retention and completion
  • Document promising initiatives for the promotion of gender equality in education
  • Widen partnership to include other sectors and organizations (Women lawyers, Police officers’wife, women judges in Nigeria for instance) to build collective commitments towards addressing issues of violence in schools, giving an active role to teacher unions.

Conclusion:

There is still a long way to go in the region for the last quantum leap towards MDG 2 and 3 by 2015. There should be a shift from parity to effective equity and equality through more comprehensive and holistic approaches which put the focus on quality. The UNGEI conferences have created a new impulse in most WCA countries around girls’ education and there is a real commitment to tackle the issue of quality through innovative approaches so as to offer adequate learning opportunities to all children, especially girls.Our network will build on this new drive towards achieving effective gender equality. Resource mobilization and financing will be critical and will require renewed synergy of efforts. Much synchronization, better coordination and genuine dialogue for collective actions are key conditions for our success in promoting more active leadership from governments to ensure effective girls/ women empowerment and participation.

Dakar, January 14, 2011

Vanya C. BERROUET

UNGEI Regional Focal Point

West and Central Africa

WCAR DATA FOR GER AND COMPLETION RATES WITH GPI (2010)

Country / Gross Enrolment Rate / Gender Parity Index for GER / Completion Rate / Gender Parity for Completion Rate
1 / Benin / 117(2008) / 0.87 / 62 (2003) / 0.97
2 / Burkina Faso / 78(2009) / 0.89 / 72 (2008) / 1.01
3 / Cameroon / 114(2009) / 0.86 / 70 (2008) / 1.01
4 / Cape Verde / 98(2009) / 0.93 / 88(2007) / 1.03
5 / CAR / 89(2009) / 0.71 / 40 (2008) / 0.80
6 / Chad / 90(2009) / 0.70 / 25 (2005) / 0.74
7 / Congo / 120(2009) / 0.94 / 71 (2007) / 1.01
8 / Cote D’Ivoire / 74(2009) / 0.81 / 59(2008) / 0.96
9 / DRC / 90(2009) / 0.85 / 76 (2007) / 0.93
10 / Equatorial Guinea / 82(2009) / 0.96 / 56 (2008) / 1.07
11 / Gabon / N/A / N/A / N/A / N/A
12 / Gambia / 86(2008) / 1.06 / 73 (2007) / 1.03
13 / Ghana / 105(2009) / 0.99 / 71(2008) / 0.94
14 / Guinea / 90(2008) / 0.85 / 49(2007) / 0.83
15 / Guinea Bissau / 120 (2006) / N/A / N/A / N/A
16 / Liberia / 91(2008) / 0.90 / N/A / N/A
17 / Mali / 95(2009) / 0.84 / 77 (2008) / 0.95
18 / Mauritania / 104(2009) / 1.08 / 74(2008) / 1.02
19 / Niger / 62(2009) / 0.80 / 64(2008) / 0.92
20 / Nigeria / 93(2007) / 0.88 / N/A / N/A
21 / St Principe / 131(2009) / 1.01 / 71 (2007) / 0.93
22 / Senegal / 84(2009) / 1.04 / 59(2008) / 1.04
23 / Sierra Leone / 158 (2007) / 0.88 / N/A / N/A
24 / Togo / 115)(2009) / 0.94 / 39 (2006) / 0.80
  1. Data from UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS) 2009.
  2. Gross Enrolment Rate (GER) Data from UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS).

When 2008 date where not available the most updated NER data have been used.

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[1] Source: Data from UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS), 2009