This was the message of Niger’s Minister of Primary Education, National Languages Promotion, Literacy, and Civic Education, Ms. Ali Mariama Elhadj Ibrahim, in her opening speech at the launching ceremony of a new UNESCO project ‘Tackling gender inequalities in Niger’s education system’.

Girls and women’s education and training have always been a development issue of paramount importance in Niger. In terms of gender equity, disparities grow more pronounced as students evolve in educational and training cycles. The low representation of girls in secondary and higher education is a result of the low school survival rate of girls at the primary level (67% according to UNESCO Institute for Statistics). 

To contribute to address this remaining challenge, UNESCO Dakar has received $162,000 from the Government of Japan to implement a 12-month project targeting selected primary and secondary schools.

Pilot to inform decision-making

The project has 5 components:

1. Identifying intervention gaps in this area,
2. Supporting female teachers for them to be role model for girls,
3. Building capacities of school administration to monitor the implementation of plan/strategies, policies and programmes,
4. Devising advocacy campaign and information on gender equality,
5. Implementing activities to maintain girls in school in collaboration with the partners.

The launching ceremony of this new project was held at the Palais des Congrès in Niamey, Niger on 28 May 2015 in the presence of the Minister of Primary Education, National Languages Promotion, Literacy, and Civic Education, the Representative of JICA in Niger, technical staff of the relevant Ministries and other partners.

“The aim is to work with these selected schools to get evidence that can provide further guidance and inform decision-makers on the implementation of the national plans/strategies,” says Ann Therese Ndong-Jatta, Director of UNESCO’s Regional Office in Dakar, who launched the project with the Ministry.

Building synergies

The ceremony followed a meeting with 16 technical staff - among which 9 women – representing the Ministries of Primary Education, National Languages Promotion, Literacy, and Civic Education, the Ministry of Secondary Education, the Ministry of Youth and the Ministry of Vocational and Technical Education.

Given the magnitude of the problems and the limited budget and duration of the project, the geographical scope of this project was agreed upon: the Department of Say and Torodi in the Tillaberi Region which is one of the priority zone given the high dropout rates was selected to enable synergies with on-going interventions like the CapEFA Programme and JICA projects among others. Further synergies with other education partners (French Development Agency (AFD), UN Women, World Food Program, UNICEF, etc.) are also being explored.