By Elise Naert & Wendi Cui, on 5 May, 2016

The Capacity Development for All was set in 2003 in order to support countries most at risk of not achieving the EFA goals by 2015. The supported countries were selected through a set of criteria that aims to compensate the lack of data with real contexts. All CapEFA participating countries are thus LDCs with either low score on the education development index (EDI), or in a status of post-conflict or post-disaster. EDI is a composite index which takes into account the Adjusted Net Enrolment Rate (ANER), the Adult Literacy Rate, the Survival Rate to Grade 5, and Gender Parity Index (GPI).

Guinea has been part of the programme since 2007, and benefited from three funding cycles:

-          The CapEFA phase 1 focused on strengthening professional competencies of primary school teachers and their supervisors for quality education;

-          The CapEFA phase 2 focused on capitalizing experiences on modular approach and on the national policy on teacher training, which was also an occasion to scale up the national strategy of in-service training;

-          The CapEFA phase 3 targeted monitoring and supervision, at the departmental, regional, and national levels.

After an external evaluation conducted in summer 2015, the CapEFA Guinea came out with enormous achievements and enjoyed the highest implementation rate among the 28 supported programmes. Among other results, the external evaluation report particularly outlined a strong national ownership and leadership. Indeed, the programme in Guinea was the only one led by a national coordination mechanism with direct support from UNESCO International Institute for Capacity Building in Africa (IICBA).

With the new reshaping of the CapEFA programme and its alignment with SDG 4 “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”, and the Agenda 2030, the new Capacity Development programme for Education (CapED) will certainly have a lot to capitalize on, specifically in the area of teachers in Sub Saharan Africa. 

The IICBA team led by Mr. Mame Omar Diop (Education Specialist) feels that it is time to highlight one of the CapEFA’s biggest success, illustrated by the example of the Republic of Guinea. A final review workshop was conducted in Conakry in April 2016, where different stakeholders gathered during three days. The aim was to compile good practices, situate the available expertise, and prepare a publication for advocacy and South-South cooperation. UNESCO Abuja was invited to participate in the event, as Guinea is under this office, to ensure a takeover with the Education Programme Specialist, Mrs. Rokhaya Fall Diawara, to prepare for the consultations on national plans for Education 2030.

A report on the whole CapEFA Programme since 2007 will be prepared, as well as a publication on good practices.

Further reading:

SDG: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld

CapEFA Annual Progress Report 2015: http://www.iicba.unesco.org/sites/default/files/sites/default/files/CapEFA%20Annual%20Progress%20Report%202015.pdf