Meeting in Brussels approved implementation plan for GPE strategy and kicked off replenishment

The Global Partnership’s Board of Directors met last week in Brussels on May 21-22.  We were fortunate to have in attendance Education Ministers from Lesotho, Afghanistan, Senegal, Cote D’Ivoire, Tajikistan, Timor Leste, Guyana and Burkina Faso, as well Vice Ministers of Education from Honduras and Lao PDR.  The Board Meeting was very successful, full of interesting and dynamic discussion, with the highlight being the approval of 13 new education funding grants in 12 countries to a total value of $439 million.

A very strong theme throughout the meetings was the importance of the Global Partnership’s engagement in fragile and conflict-affected states, one of five core strategic objectives in the partnership’s Strategic Plan.  The Board approved a new operational framework for effective support in these countries, providing strong guidance on handling issues such as a coup d’état, armed conflict, human rights violations, large scale emergencies, corruption or very low administrative capacity in government systems.  The Global Partnership has been expanding its focus on fragile and conflict-affected states for the past two years and currently 22 out of the current 58 developing country partners are considered fragile.

Implementation Plan for GPE Strategy approved

The Board of Directors also approved the Implementation Plan for the GPE Strategic Plan 2012-2015.  The partnership was determined to develop a strong implementation plan that can be monitored and brings together all partners working collectively in pursuit of our objectives and goals.  The primary technical areas of focus for the Implementation Plan are:

• further strengthening engagement in fragile and conflict-affected states;
• girls’ education;
• early grade reading and numeracy;
• improving teacher effectiveness; and
• expanding the volume, effectiveness, efficiency and equitable allocation of education financing.

The plan also seeks improvements in the way the partnership functions, especially in terms of supporting the role and functioning of local education groups  in our developing country partners and also in the areas of innovation and knowledge sharing.

Upcoming replenishment campaign

I was particularly pleased that the Board endorsed the preliminary strategy for our upcoming replenishment campaign, including holding a pledging conference in June 2014.  We are well on track to exceeding our goal of $2 billion raised for the GPE Fund by 2014. With unprecedented demand from developing country partners we plan to build on that success with our next replenishment.  We plan to launch the replenishment campaign in September this year, during the United Nations General Assembly. A partnership results meeting the day before our next Board meeting in Addis Ababa on November 17-19, 2013 will be a good way to take stock of our results.  Please stay tuned for more information on this.

The Board meeting in Brussels was the first for Alice Albright, our new CEO. She will be posting a blog next week highlighting experiences and outcomes from her current visits to Senegal and South Sudan.

Education is on the development agenda

The Global Partnership was pleased to hold its Board Meetings just before the European Union High Level Conference on Education and Development on May 23, convened by Andris Piebalgs, European Commissioner for Development. The conference was a great success with political and financial commitments to education.  This is an exciting time for the education sector.

For a detailed look at the Board meeting agenda, final decisions, documents and presentations, click here.

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