Driving education transformation: Reflecting on the MOPAN evaluation

GPE's CEO reflects on the findings of the MOPAN evaluation of GPE, which provides a valuable opportunity to celebrate the partnership's progress, reflect on areas for growth, and align efforts to ensure every child can access quality education.

January 16, 2025 by Laura Frigenti, GPE Secretariat
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4 minutes read
A school community in Côte d'Ivoire during a celebration

A school community in Côte d'Ivoire during a celebration

Credit: GPE/Rodrig Mbock

GPE’s objective is to transform education systems in lower-income countries, enabling millions of children worldwide to reach their full potential and contribute to a safe, prosperous and sustainable world.

As a partnership we value transparency, mutual accountability, and a steadfast commitment to continuous improvement.

MOPAN’s recent evaluation reaffirms GPE’s pivotal role in transforming education systems.

Key achievements and strengths

MOPAN’s finding that GPE’s strategic direction is highly relevant and aligned with global development goals is encouraging. I know all GPE partners will welcome this validation, which underscores the importance of our work.

The following are areas of strong performance:

  • Mobilizing more financing for education
    Through the GPE Multiplier, we have mobilized $3.8 billion in co-financing from 64 co-financiers, exceeding our target of $2.5 billion. This success illustrates GPE’s ability to attract external investments for education from a wide range of partners and is a testament to the partnership’s strong convening power.
  • Operating more efficiently
    The GPE model is built on an “act, learn and adapt” approach; improving efficiency has been a core focus of our work. In FY24, grant approvals and disbursements each exceeded $1 billion, marking a significant increase compared to prior years. Implementation delays have decreased by over six months in our current strategic period, reflecting streamlined processes and more effective management.
  • Advancing gender equality and climate resilience
    GPE doubled the proportion of approved grants focused on gender equality under our current strategy GPE 2025 compared to our previous one. As of mid-2024, 75% of partner countries are integrating gender equality considerations into their priority reforms. Additionally, GPE’s Climate Smart Education System Initiative is helping 35 countries address climate challenges through education, with $418 million invested in climate-related measures in FY24 alone.
  • Strengthening GPE’s role in the global education architecture
    Over the past two years, we have sharpened GPE’s role within the global education ecosystem. As a member of the High-Level Steering Committee for SDG 4, GPE contributes to coordinating the sector’s efforts to take the education transformation agenda forward. We have also clarified our collaboration with Education Cannot Wait (ECW), ensuring complementarity at both global and country levels. This alignment reduces redundancies and amplifies impact in crisis-affected contexts. Finally, through two unique programs for sharing and scaling research (KIX) and supporting civil society advocacy and action (Education Out Loud), GPE is contributing directly to strengthening education policy and accountability globally, regionally and nationally.

Forward momentum and improvements

MOPAN’s evaluation identifies areas for growth, which align with the findings of our self-assessment.

  • Improving grant agent performance
    The MOPAN assessment rightly points out that grant agent performance is critical to improved implementation results. GPE currently has 17 active grant agents. By refining our grant agent selection process to better align with country contexts and to prioritize performance, we are giving partner countries a broader range of options, with a view to enhanced efficiency and accountability.
  • Addressing sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment
    To strengthen enforcement of our policy against sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment, we are enhancing awareness across the partnership and bolstering grant agents’ capacity to address these critical issues. This includes embedding these responsibilities within country teams for better oversight and operationalization.
  • Aligning partners
    Mutual accountability is central to GPE’s ethos. MOPAN highlights the need for all partners to align more closely with the commitments outlined in the GPE Charter and partnership compacts. Through mid-term reviews of countries’ priority reforms outlined in partnership compacts, we will continue to foster deeper alignment and coordination in partner countries, ensuring our collective efforts drive systemic change.
  • Measuring results
    While MOPAN recognizes GPE as an evidence-informed organization, we agree with its finding of the need to sharpen our approach to track and demonstrate results. To address this, we are proposing three actions for Board consideration: set a partnership-wide target on learning outcomes data, ensure regular monitoring of countries’ education system reforms progress, and standardize grant indicators. These steps will enable us to better measure the impact of our work and ensure transparency.

Building on a strong foundation

As we prepare our next strategy, GPE 2030, over the coming months, we are incorporating lessons from GPE 2025 and using evidence to simplify our model, minimize transaction costs and maximize impact.

MOPAN’s evaluation provides a valuable opportunity to celebrate our collective progress, reflect on areas for growth, and align our efforts to ensure every child can access quality education.

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