The three Africa constituencies of the Global Partnership for Education met in Bujumbura, Burundi earlier this month to prepare for the upcoming meeting of GPE’s Board of Directors which will take place on June 27-28, 2014 in Brussels, Belgium – right after the big replenishment conference. The representatives of education ministries from 37 African GPE partner countries prepared for the board meeting and discussed how to further strengthen the communication, coordination and regional learning among their regions and countries.

The governance structure of the GPE Board of Directors is set up to ensure inclusive participation in decision-making and to facilitate information sharing and knowledge exchange in the partnership. Currently there are 59 developing country partners in the Global Partnership. Of the 19 constituencies in the Board of Directors, three represent 38 countries from Africa. 

Preparing for GPE board meetings

Since 2012, the German BACKUP Initiative – Education in Africa (BACKUP Education) – a program implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) – has supported the three GPE Africa constituencies to hold these meetings. They provide important opportunities for the members of each constituency to discuss and build consensus on issues to be discussed at the board. The face-to-face meetings also help the three constituencies to connect and exchange information with each other.

The value of such meetings has been reflected in a stronger regional partnership and a notably stronger voice and contributions from the board members representing Africa during the board and its technical committee meetings. The African board members are also important advocates for the mission and strategy of the Global Partnership for Education in Africa.

Helping developing country partners to be effective board members

The Secretariat of the Global Partnership supports and participates in these constituency meetings to ensure that the Global Partnership’s principles and procedures are fully understood, and to provide updates on new and important developments. This helps developing country partners to make better use of the resources available to them - all for the larger benefit of the children in their countries.

During the meeting in Bujumbura, developing country partners were also invited to make new strong commitments to getting as many boys as girls complete primary school, to increase access to education, and improve the quality of learning. Other areas that need more focus and commitment include system efficiency, better education data collection and more accountability on how funds are being spent.

Strong pledges expected from developing countries at the GPE replenishment

All of the commitment made by country representatives will be part of the pledges that the Global Partnership for Education is seeking as part of its replenishment campaign. Over 40 education ministers from GPE partner developing countries are expected to attend the replenishment conference next week in Brussels and most of them, will make a pledge.

Djibril Ndiaye Diouf, Director of Planning and Education Reform from Senegal’s Ministry of Education called on his African colleagues to commit to an increase in domestic funding for education of at least 20% of their national budgets. This would encourage donors to meet the US$ 3.5 billion goal set by GPE’s Board of Directors to continue to support the needs of GPE’s developing country partners effectively.

Diouf noted that “the Global Partnership is currently the only global mechanism supporting countries to develop their strategic education sector planning. This planning helps us to focus more on performance. Today, we cannot ask for financial resources without ensuring their transformation into results.”

Through meetings like this one in Bujumbura, GPE developing countries get the opportunity to collaborate directly identifying and learning from evidence-based strategies in dealing with salient sector issues. The BACKUP Education is well positioned to help African GPE partner countries with the follow-up on specific country and regional initiatives. The GPE Secretariat has noted significant improvements of Joint Sector Reviews and Education Sector Plans. To a large part, these improvements can be attributed to the exchanges organized between member countries.