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- Current: Democratic Republic of Congo
Allocation: US$15 million
Years: 2020-2022
Grant agent: UNICEF
Key document:
The US$15 million COVID-19 grant supports:
In late March 2020, the UNICEF office in DRC received a GPE grant of US$70,000 to support the Ministry of Education and the government in planning their response to the pandemic.
The GPE funds have been used in the preparation of supports for distance education, including the design translation and audio recording of math and French lessons in local languages. The funds were also used to design the homework exercise books in paper format for preschool, primary and secondary schools.
The Democratic Republic of Congo has made significant progress in the education sector. For instance, the completion rate at primary level has substantially increased from 29% in 2002 to 70% in 2014. Yet, it is still one of the countries with the largest number of out-of-school children.
It is estimated that 3.5 million or 26.7% of primary age children are out-of-school, of which 2.75 million live in rural areas. Furthermore, the sector is facing a wide range of challenges with regard to quality, governance and disparities.
In order to tackle these challenges, the Democratic Republic of Congo has developed its Education Sector Plan for 2016–2025 with a focus on expanding access and equity, improving learning quality, and improving governance and management in the sector.
Three strategic objectives are stated in the sector plan including:
Public financing of education has increased substantially, from 9% of public expenditures in 2010 to 18% in 2014. During the process of endorsing the new sector plan, the government committed to bringing the share of its budget allocated to education to 20% by 2018 and to maintain it at that level until 2025.
In the DRC, the coordinating agency is UNICEF. The local education group is chaired by the Ministry of Education and made up of development partners (Belgium Technical Co-operation, AFD, DFID, UNICEF, USAID, World Bank, and UNESCO) and civil society.
A grant of US$100 million has been approved for the period of 2017-2022 with the following objectives:
An accelerated grant of $20 million for the 2020-2021 period is expected to benefit 217,800 primary and lower secondary school students affected by crises.
The program’s objective is to ensure access and continuous attendance to quality inclusive education in a safe and protective environment. The program aims at reinforcing coordination for a better response to crisis of the education system, including preparing education responses to emergency situations through the humanitarian-development nexus.
The program has 3 components:
Gender equity is one of the key areas of focus of the program with different entry points: activities support girls’ access and retention such as the prioritization of appropriate water and sanitation facilities, hygiene kits distribution and inclusion.
All amounts are in US dollars.
Grant type | Years | Allocations | Utilization | Grant agent | |
Accelerated funding | 2020-2022 | 20,000,000 | 8,853,570 | UNICEF | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
COVID-19 | 2020-2022 | 15,000,000 | 11,924,394 | UNICEF | |
Program implementation | 2017-2022 | 100,000,000 | 99,799,986 | WB | Progress report |
2013-2017 | 99,924,060 | 99,924,060 | WB | Completion report | |
Sector plan development | 2015-2016 | 87,102 | 87,102 | WB | |
System capacity | 2021-2025 | 760,000 | 0 | UNESCO | |
Program development | 2023 | 200,000 | 0 | AFD | |
2023 | 200,045 | 0 | WB | ||
2015-2016 | 302,114 | 302,114 | WB | ||
Total | 236,473,321 | 220,891,226 |
As part of its investment in civil society advocacy and social accountability efforts, GPE’s Education Out Loud fund is supporting the Coalition nationale de l'éducation pour tous en République Démocratique du Congo (CONEPT DRC) for the 2019-2021 period.
This builds on 11 years of Civil Society Education Fund (CSEF) support to national education coalitions for their engagement in education sector policy dialogue.
GPE had provided the Coalition nationale de l'éducation pour tous en République Démocratique du Congo (CONEPT DRC) with a grant from the CSEF to support its engagement in education sector policy dialogue and citizens’ voice in education quality, equity, and financing and sector reform.