ANNUAL REPORT 2014 - United Nations Girls' … ANNUAL REPORT 2014 U ... commissioned background...
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A N N U A L R E P O R T 2 0 1 4Bridging the education gender divide together
A N N U A L R E P O R T 2 0 1 4Bridging the education gender divide together
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4organizations
joined UNGEI’s Global Advisory
Committee in 2014.
NLETTER FROM THE UNGEI CHAIR
Norad is pleased to have the opportunity to chair the UNGEI
Steering Committee in 2015-2016. This comes at an exciting period
for Norad and dovetails with the momentum Norway seeks to
foster for increased advocacy and action around girls’ education and
gender equality. Norway’s Prime Minister, Erna Solberg, was active
in creating opportunities in 2014 to raise girls’ education as a crucial
issue for sustainable development: At the World Economic Forum
Annual Meeting, where she co-chaired a session on the Millennium
Development Goals emphasizing girls’ education; and in the blog
post ‘Teach a Girl, Enrich the World’ (http://globalpublicsquare.
blogs.cnn.com/2014/01/23/teach-a-girl-enrich-the-world/) which
she co-wrote with Ethiopian student Hannah Godefa.
In June 2014 Norway launched a White Paper on Education for
Development, with the aim of increasing leadership and support
to global education, emphasising girls’ education as a key area.
Not only is it every girl’s right to get an education, educating girls
provides great return on investment in terms of development. The
Norwegian Government will seek in particular to ensure that girls
start and complete secondary education.
Norad appreciates the fruitful sharing of experience and
knowledge among members of the UNGEI Global Advisory
Committee and the Steering Committee. UNGEI provides an
important platform for policy engagement at the global levels, as
well as a place to learn from both challenges and best practices
at regional and country levels. We would like to thank the UNGEI
regional partnership in East Asia and the Pacific for hosting the
annual face-to-face meeting of the GAC in August 2014. This event
provided space and opportunities for sharing among members and
for setting out the UNGEI priorities for the end of 2014 and 2015.
24116 29INTRODUCTION/
WHO WE AREADVOCACY
INTO ACTIONBUILDING, SHARING
AND LEVERAGING KNOWLEDGE
PROMOTING PARTNERSHIP,
BUILDING CAPACITY
PAGE PAGE PAGE PAGE
UNGEI GLOBAL ADVISORY
COMMITTEE MEMBERSAfrica Network
Campaign on Education for All (ANCEFA)
Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education
(ASPBAE)
Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED)
CARE*
CISCO Systems, Inc.
Commonwealth Secretariat
The Comparative, International and
Development Education Centre (CIDEC) at the Ontario Institute of
Studies in Education*
Department for International
Development (DFID)
Forum for African Women Educationalists
(FAWE)
FHI 360*
Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada (DFATD)
Global Partnership for Education (GPE)
International Labour Organization (ILO)
Norwegian Agency for Development
Cooperation (NORAD)
Plan International
Swedish Agency for International
Development Cooperation (SIDA)
United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
United Nations Population Fund
(UNFPA)
United Nations Children’s Fund
(UNICEF)
U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID)
World Food Programme (WFP)
World Bank
World Vision International
Youth Advocacy Group of the UN
Secretary General’s Global Education First Initiative (YAG-GEFI)*
* Became GAC member in 2014 C
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We find the UNGEI partnership to be important for collective
solutions and collaboration to promote every girl’s right to
education. We need to continue to raise awareness of the multiple
challenges girls have in their effort not only to access primary
education but to complete secondary education with meaningful
learning in a conducive and gender-friendly environment. Norad is
looking forward to continuing an active engagement in UNGEI. We
are honoured to have been selected as the UNGEI Chair for the next
two years and eager to work with partners to shape UNGEI’s role in
the new SDG landscape.
Sincerely,
Randi Gramshaug Kjersti Okkelmo
SC/GAC Member (2014) Chair (2015)
Norad Norad
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“The most visible of all global mechanisms associated with gender equality has been the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI), a multi-stakeholder partnership established in Dakar in 2000. An evaluation of UNGEI particularly acknowledged its contribution in global policy dialogue and advocacy….Recognizing the challenge of translating globally agreed priorities into country-level activities, UNGEI has created stronger links with the GPE. The evaluation also praised UNGEI’s role in coordination and priority-setting among its members.”
—EFA Global Monitoring Report 2015: Education for All 2000–2015: Achievements and Challenges
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More than
100 MILLIONyoung women in low-income and lower-middle-in-come countries are unable to read a single
sentence.
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UReflecting on an eventful year and looking to the future.
WHO WE AREUNGEI is a multi-stakeholder partnership committed to
increasing girls’ access to education and improving its quality, and
to contributing to the empowerment of girls and women through
transformative education. UNGEI partners are a diverse group:
multilateral and bilateral development partners, international non-
governmental organizations, intergovernmental organizations,
regional networks of civil society organizations, youth organizations
and representatives of academia.
The UNGEI partnership is committed to heightening policy impact
through collective advocacy and coordinated action; knowledge
exchange, sharing evidence-based solutions and learning; and
strengthening partnerships and collaborative approaches.
The Global Advisory Committee (GAC) provides leadership and
guidance on UNGEI’s goals and operational plans. GAC members
also act as advocates and ambassadors for UNGEI in global
and regional forums, and they provide technical leadership by
participating in task teams. The Steering Committee includes five
GAC members who represent the different stakeholder groups in
the partnership under the leadership of a chairperson. In 2014, the
GAC expanded to include four new members (see panel listing
UNGEI Global Advisory Committee members). GAC members help
deliver on the UNGEI mandate through the work of their
own agencies.
INTRODUCTION©
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31 MILLION GIRLSThe number out of school in 2013.
Of these out-of-school girls, 55% expected
NEVER TO ENROLL in
school55%
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On 10 August 2014 in the State of Palestine, (foreground) 12-year-old Aya Abu Taweida, who wants to be a teacher for hear-ing-impaired children, stands in a temporary shelter for displaced families that has been set up in a United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) school in Gaza City.
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The UNGEI Secretariat plans, leads and coordinates the work
of the partnership on a daily basis. It carries out coordination
and outreach activities to ensure that girls’ education and gender
equality remain central to the global development agenda. UNICEF
is the lead agency for UNGEI; it is a member of the GAC and hosts
the UNGEI Secretariat. The Secretariat, in conjunction with the GAC,
strategizes around opportunities to effect change. This typically
includes an event or the launch of a report, engaging with others
working in a specific area, contributing to global policy events or
processes and nourishing a partnership that can take collaborative –
and effective – action.
UNGEI’s regional focal points provide leadership at the regional
level. They support country partnerships and link global efforts with
regional and country-level partnerships, bringing emerging issues
and critical perspectives from the field. Much of UNGEI’s sense of
revitalization and renewed action in 2014 emanated from initiatives
and connections fostered by the regional focal points and the
regional partnerships they support.
2014: A GOOD YEAR FOR UNGEIFollowing a formative evaluation in 2012 and significant
groundwork for change laid in 2013 – governance reform,
development of a policy advocacy agenda and knowledge
management action plan – 2014 was a year of operationalizing
these changes. Much of UNGEI’s work in 2014 at the global and
regional levels reflected this revitalization, which also dovetailed
with gathering momentum around creating the next global
development agenda.
Throughout 2014, the global development community reviewed
the achievements of the MDGs and sought to influence the post-
2015 sustainable development agenda. UNGEI’s goal was to keep
girls’ education and gender equality at the global policy table.
UNGEI focused on the Education for All (EFA) community and the
proposed education goals, targets and indicators, on and the UN
General Assembly Open Working Group.
As a decentralized partnership, UNGEI has many ways of working. Our mission brings us together: we are commit-ted to all girls learning and achieving gender equality.
INTRODUCTION
QUALITY COUNTS. LEARNING COUNTS. 250 million children around the world are not achieving minimum standards in reading and math-ematics.©
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West and Central Africa; Eastern and Southern Africa; East Asia and the Pacific; South Asia: All
REGIONS WHERE THERE ARE UNGEI REGIONAL FOCAL POINTS and active partnerships.©
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UNGEI’s efforts to support these
processes – through the work of the UNGEI
Secretariat and the individual efforts of
GAC members and other partners – are
a continuation of its role as a flagship for
EFA and as a key catalyst helping countries
progress towards the global education-
related development goals.
The 2014 Global Education for All
Meeting in Muscat, Oman, was the last
global meeting of all EFA partners before
the 2015 World Education Forum. A primary
aim of the meeting was to develop a joint
vision for education beyond 2015. UNGEI,
along with the Governments of Canada
and Norway, successfully advocated for
consistent and thorough consideration of
gender in the proposed education targets
of the Sustainable Development Goals. In
the final Muscat Agreement, four of the seven proposed targets
were revised to include particular attention to gender equality or
particular attention to women and girls. Building on that success,
UNGEI agreed to lead a consultation on gender-responsive indicators
for the Sustainable Development Goal on education, as the basis
for a response to the proposed indicators drafted by the Technical
Advisory Group of the EFA Steering Committee.
Since 2007, UNGEI has engaged with the EFA Global Monitoring
Report (GMR) to strengthen its focus on girls’ education and
better integrate gender considerations. In 2011 and 2012, UNGEI
commissioned background research on gender issues related to
the thematic focus of the report. Recently, UNGEI has focused
on enhancing its partnership with the GMR and building expertise
within its team. For the 2013/14 report, UNGEI and the GMR team
collaborated in writing the Gender Summary, and jointly launched
the 2013/14 Gender Summary of the GMR during the Commission
on the Status of Women to mark International Women’s Day. With
UNGEI’s support, the 2013/14 Gender Summary was also available
in French and Spanish. Reports from the GMR team reveal great
interest in the Gender Summary based on the number of times the
Gender Summary had been downloaded from the GMR website:
11,100 times between its March 2014 launch and June 2015.
For the 2015 report, UNGEI chose to invest directly in the GMR
team to strengthen its capacity to integrate questions of girls’
INTRODUCTION
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education and gender equality across all aspects of the report. This
involved funding and integrating the services of a consultant on a
temporary assignment to work directly with the GMR team from
June to December 2014.
These are a few examples of how UNGEI acted on its vision and
advanced its priorities in 2014. They are described in this annual
report, together with other accomplishments of UNGEI’s partnership
model. The report is organized around three outcome areas – policy
advocacy, building and sharing evidence, and enhancing partnerships
and capacity – and lays out key examples of momentum and
achievement, with a focus on efforts at global and regional levels. n
INTRODUCTION
A teen-age girl washes clothes in a bowl, out-side her house in Sous Rail, a neighbourhood in the town of Carrefour, next to Port-au-Prince, the capital.©
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ADVOCACY INTO ACTION
PConvening partners, creating opportunities for advancing key priorities
Policy advocacy is one of UNGEI’s core strengths. The
partnership has a rich policy advocacy agenda, designed to further
equality in education:
To advance these policy advocacy priorities, the UNGEI
Secretariat identifies openings for action and leveraging, such as
key meetings, important discussions and potential partners for
advocacy and action. Whether developing a research paper or
articulating key context and an advocacy position among opinion
leaders and decision-makers, Global Advisory Committee members
further UNGEI’s policy advocacy priorities in their respective areas
of influence. The goal is to coordinate a stronger push for – and
greater results in – furthering girls’ education and gender equality.
ALL GIRLS ACHIEVING AND
LEARNING
UNGEI POLICY ADVOCACY AT A GLANCE
An Enhanced Focus on
Marginalized and Excluded
Groups
Improved Learning
Outcomes for Girls
Increased Number of Girls Transitioning to Secondary Education
and Post-Primary Opportunities
The Reduction/Elimination of School-
Related GBV
CollectiveAdvocacy
CoordinatedAction
Sharing of Good
Practices
Policy Priorities Advocacy Approaches
Evidence Based Solutions
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Government Middle School, Jethui, Hajipur, Vaishalli, Bihar, India, March 2014: Shalu Kumari stud-ies in the 4th grade at the Government Middle school in Jethui Hajipur in Bihar.
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In 2014, UNGEI created and acted on important openings to advance
its policy advocacy priorities, with particular momentum in the area of
reducing and eliminating school-related gender-based violence.
POLICY ADVOCACY PRIORITY: THE REDUCTION AND ELIMINA-TION OF SCHOOL-RELATED GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE
School-related gender-based violence (SRGBV) is a violation
of human rights and a significant impediment to girls’ school
attendance and achievement. Around 246 million girls and boys
around the world experience school-related violence each year.
The lack of comparable data across countries and on various kinds
of violence in schools makes it difficult to estimate the scale and
scope of SRGBV. However, research on violence against women
and girls indicates that girls are more at risk of sexual violence,
harassment and exploitation, while boys are more likely to
experience physical violence. Violence experienced in and on the
way to school affects children in different ways, ranging from low
self-esteem and depression to school avoidance, low participation
in class, inability to concentrate in school and on homework, and
dropping out.
UNGEI played an important role in increasing dialogue between
agencies and organizations, and supporting joint advocacy to raise
awareness of SRGBV as both a gender and an education issue.
A male teacher assists a girl child to solve a ques-tion on blackboard, while rest of the students in the class sit on mats on sandy floors at Salam #9 Primary School for Girls in Abu Shouk camp for Internally Displaced People (IDP).
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246 MILLION
The number of girls and boys worldwide
who experience school-related violence each
year.
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USAID is a long-standing advocate and leader of
efforts to end school-related gender-based violence.
As early as 2003, USAID was active in systematically
documenting and reviewing information on the
prevalence and consequences of SRGBV. That year,
USAID launched the Safe Schools Program, designed
to help teachers, community members and students
prevent and respond to SRGBV.
USAID is committed to eliminating all forms of
SRGBV in all school systems where it works around
the world. However, the lack of research on SRGBV
and a common framework for understanding and
measuring SRGBV, as well as a lack of awareness in
the development community, continue to be major
challenges to achieving this goal. USAID launched the
Opportunities for Achievement and Safety in Schools
(OASIS) programme in 2014 with the aim of closing
those gaps. In particular, OASIS aims to develop a
framework for measuring and monitoring SRGBV. With
this framework, researchers and development partners
are expected to have a clearer path for investigating
SRGBV, monitoring and evaluating programmes, and
building evidence to drive policy and establish the
efficacy of interventions in different parts of the world.
Additionally, USAID has taken a number of steps to
support the Global Partners Working Group on SRGBV.
In 2014, USAID began a two-year partnership with
UNGEI to fund the Working Group Coordinator. The
agency leads the Research Task Team within the Global
Partners Working Group and is an active member
across all areas of focus.
DEMONSTRATING COMMITMENT TO ENDING SRGBV: USAID
Momentum in 2014 sprang largely from two distinct threads of
advocacy work: collaboration with Education International (EI), the
global federation of teachers’ unions, and partnering with UNESCO
and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs to bring together leading
education actors – academics, donors, civil society organizations and
multilaterals – to identify opportunities for collaboration and action.
In April 2014, UNGEI, along with UNESCO and the Government
of France, gathered 30 development agencies and researchers to
lay the groundwork for a Global Partners Working Group. The group
would ignite stronger efforts against SRGBV, help establish global
standards for responding to the problem and promote evidence
gathering to help monitor trends and improve practices.
The Global Partners Working Group on SRGBV was subsequently
launched in October 2014. The coordinator of the Global Partners
Working Group on SRGBV is hosted by UNGEI. The coordinator
supports the work of the 3 Task Teams: advocacy, global guidance
and research and manages the e-resource centre on SRGBV. The
UNGEI website hosts this expanding resource centre of SRGBV-
specific materials. UNGEI co-chairs the Working Group with the
UNESCO Section of Health and Global Citizenship Education.
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An Advocacy Task Team was set up within the Working Group.
And in November 2014, UNGEI, EI, UNESCO and the Global
Education First Initiative (GEFI) released a joint statement on the
Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
The theme of the International Day of the Girl Child, on 11
October 2014, was ‘Empowering Adolescent Girls: Ending the
cycle of violence’. While the UNGEI Secretariat provided technical
support and helped develop messages to convey during key
events hosted by UNICEF, the lead UN agency for the Day, UNGEI
GAC members and UNGEI regional and national partnerships
also engaged in targeted advocacy around SRGBV. The power of
these partnerships and connections amplified a call to reduce and
eliminate this violation of human rights:
• A reception in honour of the International Day of the Girl
Child in Bangkok, hosted by Plan International, brought
together key stakeholders to renew commitment to
eliminating and reducing SRGBV.
• In the Gambia, the national UNGEI network held a special
event in a rural setting that connected 200 students and
parents in an intergenerational dialogue and highlighted good
practices in girls’ education.
• In Sierra Leone, the day was commemorated by a weeklong
media advocacy and sensitization campaign. Girls around the
country participated by writing poems about their experiences
and the negative impact of Ebola on education in the country
in general and on girls’ education in particular. They also
encouraged each other to counter these barriers by taking
full advantage of alternative education opportunities, such as
the Emergency Radio Education Programme provided by the
Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.
• In Paris, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International
Development, along with Plan International France, hosted
a policy roundtable called ‘Learn Without Fear’. The UNGEI
Secretariat and the West and Central Africa UNGEI regional
partnership participated. The outcome statement from
the event formed the basis of a resolution that was later
presented by France, with the support of the Global Partners
Working Group, to UNESCO’s Executive Board, and which
passed in April 2015 – the first-ever UN resolution on SRGBV.
In terms of SRGBV efforts at the regional level, throughout 2014,
UNGEI’s regional partnerships helped drive forward advocacy and
evidence building in important ways. In West and Central Africa, a
ADVOCACY INTO ACTION
Teacher Union take action to stop
SCHOOL- RELATED
GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE:
UNGEI co-hosted a workshop at the
Education International’s Second World Women’s Conference in Dublin and
launched an EI-UNGEI Initiative addressing school-related gen-der-based violence,
From Words to Action: Education Unions Take Action to Stop SRGBV.
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Zainab ABDUL-RAHMAN (17) started school 3 years ago in Ghana.
ADVOCACY INTO ACTION
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four-country project on SRGBV in Burkina Faso, Côte D’Ivoire, Mali
and the Niger, funded by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
was the catalyst to a regional dialogue supported by the UNGEI
regional focal point and the UNICEF regional office in Senegal. By
bringing the countries together, different partners were able to
share knowledge and experience, thus fostering the beginnings of
a strong regional nexus of expertise and action on SRGBV. Building
on the success of this work, three additional countries in the region
are expected to launch projects to address SRGBV in 2015, with
financing from France. Over the long term, the project aims to
strengthen capacity of the education systems to prevent SRGBV
(including through the development of local protection and reporting
systems), mobilize communities and parents and empower girls and
women. Regional coordination, evidence building and advocacy will
continue to be a key feature of the work.
In East Asia and the Pacific, SRGBV has been identified as a key
priority by member organizations and for the UNGEI partnership.
During the Regional Gender Forum held in August 2014 in Bangkok,
five countries shared their experience of SRGBV, which highlighted
the specific nature of SRGBV in the region. The East Asia and
the Pacific partnership also created an SRGBV infographic and
translated it into 10 local languages, along with a series of gallery
posters featuring work around SRGBV and marginalization in China,
Fiji, Indonesia, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Philippines,
Thailand and Timor-Leste.
ADVOCACY INTO ACTION
On this International Day of the Girl Child, I call on all governments to take action to end all forms of violence against girls in all parts of the world. Together, we must create a world where violence against women and girls is never tolerated and girls are always empowered to reach their full potential.
— United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, 11 October 2014
ON THE INTERNATIONAL DAY OF THE GIRL CHILD, UNGEI East Asia and the Pacific
launched a social media campaign to mobilize poli-cy-makers, the education sector and youth with an infographic available in Bahasa, Bengali, Burmese, Chinese, Filipino, Khmer, Korean, Sinhala, Thai, and Vietnamese, as well as in English, French and Spanish.
An infographic on
SRGBV AND MARGINALIZATION, (http://www.ungei.org/resources/index_5860.html) created by the UNGEI East Asia and the Pacific regional partnership, effectively documented progress, best practices and further support needed in order to reduce SRGBV in the context of mar-ginalization in China, Fiji, Indonesia, Micronesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Timor-Leste.
跨性別学生所经历的暴力是个很少被讨论或记录的话题
教育
代际暴力
健康
通过教学内容和方法促进性别平等态度和非暴力行为 与青年共同建立解决方案
加强学校,家庭及服务之间的联系
鼓励校方制定保护政策
若你曾目睹或经历校园性别暴力立刻找一位你信任的人求助
校园性别暴力的经历可以导致学生(尤其女生)参加学校活动减少,成绩不良, 甚至辍学
校园暴力和其他环境内所发生的暴力一样,可以影响到个人的身体、心理和性健康
目睹或经历过暴力的男生,在成年后的人际交往关系中更倾向于使用暴力
口头辱骂欺凌
身体暴力在亚太地区,女性较常面对社会排斥和性及心理暴力,而男性较常面对体罚、
欺凌及其他种身体暴力
性暴力及骚扰
亚太地区内的校园性别暴力 在学校及周边所发生的暴力通常基于性别认同的刻板印象和角色规范期望而引起
体罚
校园性别暴力包括而不仅限于身体、心理和性的暴力
Design by alikecreative.com
学校
To mark the International Day of the Girl Child, a podcast (http://learn-
ingforpeace.unicef.org/media-center/stories/
podcast-98-day-of-the-girl-2014-empowering-
adolescent-girls-ending-the-cycle-of-violence/ )was recorded as part of the Changing the World
for Girls series, featuring young actress
KUOTH WIEL and Professor Fiona Leach, an expert on
international education.
18 UNGEI ANNUAL REPORT 2014
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IKThe UNGEI EAP partnership was also active in building
capacity of regional actors to better understand key determinants
related to reducing and eliminating SRGBV. For example, a
landmark report, School-related Gender-based Violence in
the Asia-Pacific Region, was prepared and launched. And in
response to the need to increase partnering and cross-sectoral
work to more deeply address the stereotypes and social norms
that lead to SRGBV, the regional partnership and key partners
in the regional UNGEI SRGBV working group commissioned a
curriculum tool for use in lower secondary grades. The classroom
programme, teacher’s guidance note and extensive glossary are
expected to build the capacity of teachers to address SRGBV and
gender equality in the classroom. The tool was created in 2014
and will be piloted and refined in 2015.
But we shouldn’t be satisfied. Because while the benefits of primary education are real and meaningful, we know that if we truly want to transform girls’ lives, if we truly want to give them the tools to shape their own destinies, then primary education often just isn’t enough. At that point in a girl’s life, it is no longer enough to simply talk about building schools and buying supplies, because when it comes to educating adolescent girls the real challenge isn’t just about resources, it’s about attitudes and beliefs. It’s about whether fathers and mothers think their daughters are as worthy of an education as their sons. It’s about whether communities value young women for their minds, or only for the reproductive and labor capacities of their bodies. It’s also about whether all of us are willing to confront the complex, sensitive issues that keep so many adolescent girls out of school – issues like early and forced marriage, and genital cutting; issues like domestic violence and human trafficking.
Michelle Obama, First Lady of the United States, at the United Nations Secretary-General’s Global Education First Initiative event on girls’ secondary education at the 69th United Nations General Assembly Session, New York, September 2014
A blog post titled ‘Breaking Cycles of Gen-
der-based Violence in Schools Starts at Home’
was submitted by UNGEI partner
CARE INTERNATIONALas part of the Interna-tional Day of the Girl Child celebrations.
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POLICY ADVOCACY PRIORITY: INCREASED NUMBER OF GIRLS TRANSITIONING TO SECOND-ARY EDUCATION AND POST- PRIMARY OPPORTUNITIES
The participation of boys and girls in both lower and upper
secondary education has increased rapidly since 1999; overall,
gender disparities are narrowing. The situation varies by region,
however. In sub-Saharan Africa and in South and West Asia, girls
are still more disadvantaged in secondary enrolment, while in Latin
America and the Caribbean, boys are more disadvantaged. The
most extreme cases of disparity are still at the expense of girls,
though. Girls remain particularly at risk of having their education
disrupted at the time of transition to secondary and post-primary
opportunities due to factors including child marriage, school-related
gender-based violence, conflict and instability, and lack of a gender-
sensitive environment and curriculum.
For almost 14 years, UNGEI has worked closely with the Global
Partnership for Education (GPE) to help countries develop and
manage effective school systems where both girls and boys can
attend school, remain in school and learn. Since 2012, UNGEI
has been the lead agency supporting the implementation of the
GPE Strategic Objective 2: All girls in GPE-endorsed countries
successfully complete primary school and go to secondary school
in a safe, supportive learning environment. An UNGEI-GPE initiative
on gender-responsive sector planning was launched in late 2013 and
was in full force through 2014. As part of this initiative, a Gender
Analysis Guidance was piloted in Eritrea, Guinea and Malawi, with
support from UNGEI regional focal points. The guidance will help
national education decision-makers identify the extent to which
their education systems are ready to address gender concerns and
monitor progress in gender and education. Developing the tool
jointly with GPE, Plan International and UNESCO’s International
Institute for Educational Planning has provided UNGEI with multiple
ways to engage with stakeholders at global, regional and national
levels to further education systems transformation.
At the regional level, UNGEI East Asia and the Pacific worked
closely with the Ministry of Education in the Lao People’s
Democratic Republic to integrate the gender perspective into
planning for the education sector. Building on UNGEI’s collaboration
with Plan International and the 2013 Gender Review of the Laos
Education Sector Development Plan, UNGEI, with Plan and UNICEF,
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69% of countries will achieve gender parity in primary
education by 2015.
OF 145 COUNTRIES
with data for both primary and secondary
education,
ONLY 43% have achieved gender parity in enrollment for both primary and secondary education.
Revamping education systems is crucial for
GIRLS’ ACCESS to secondary education
and post-primary op-portunities, and for the quality of their learning.
17 organizations were awarded funds to document good
practices in girls’ education and
gender equality programming.
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supported official endorsement of the Gender Disability and
Inclusion Technical Working Group. Continued action by the group
is expected to help shape the country’s forthcoming Gender Action
Plan. Plan International co-chairs the Gender Disability and Inclusion
Technical Working Group with the Ministry of Education Inclusive
Education Center and has been a key driver of these efforts.
In 2014, a number of UNGEI partners sought to address the
educational needs of pregnant teens or teen mothers as a way
to further the priority of getting an increased number of girls to
transition to secondary education and post-primary opportunities.
In Sierra Leone, the Ebola epidemic caused school doors to shut
for 1.8 million children. A comprehensive assessment of the Ebola
recovery efforts in Sierra Leone conducted by Plan International,
Save the Children, World Vision, and with the support of UNICEF,
consulted over 1,100 girls and boys aged 7–18 years. Most of
the 617 girls interviewed believed that the higher incidences
of teenage pregnancies and increased exposure to sexual
exploitation and violence were a direct result of no longer having
access to a safe school environment. Pregnant girls faced further
marginalization because government policies barred them from
taking national exams.
Progress in countering this was made with strong advocacy to
change the policy from partners including the Sierra Leone Girls
’Education Network (SLeGEN) and Girls’ Education Movement
(GEM) chapters. Ultimately, positive outcomes began to take shape
after the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology created
a task force focused on the special needs of pregnant teens and
physically challenged children, including access to health facilities,
educational support during pregnancy and accelerated learning, to
enable them to catch up.
In Uganda, UNGEI partners’ Go to School, Back to School and
Stay in School campaigns continued to seek reentry of pregnant
girls and young mothers, as provided for by the country’s official
policies. In 2014, a total of 2,948 girls returned to school thanks
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ADVOCACY INTO ACTIONIn Latin America and the Caribbean,
93 BOYS are enrolled in secondary school
FOR EVERY 100 GIRLS.
In sub-Saharan Africa,
84 GIRLS are enrolled in secondary school
FOR EVERY 100 BOYS.
In 2014, MALALA YOUSAFZAI became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for her work to help all girls go to school and remain
in school, and to raise their voices for the right to education. In Oslo, Norway, while accepting the prize, she said, “I am those 66 million girls who are deprived of education. And today I am not raising my voice, it is the voice of those 66 million girls.”
22 UNGEI ANNUAL REPORT 2014
to this programme, which was implemented in 28 districts around
the country. UNGEI helped orchestrate collective advocacy to shift
attitudes and affect implementation of policies so that pregnant
girls or young teenage mothers can enjoy their right to an education.
UNGEI partners also promoted efforts to curb teen pregnancy and
dropout through mentoring and life skills education. For example,
the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation supported a
Save the Children project to reduce teenage pregnancies in Malawi,
where 28 per cent of girls drop out due to pregnancy, with less than
10 per cent of these ever re-admitted to school. Programmes such
as this one, which aims to reach 830,000 adolescent girls aged
10–19 years by the end of its implementation period, provide much-
needed interventions to tackle this problem.
POLICY ADVOCACY PRIORITY: CATALYZING ACTION AROUND MARGINALIZED CHILDREN AND IMPROVING LEARNING OUT-COMES FOR GIRLS
As the Global Monitoring Report 2013/2014 put it, “the
interaction between geography, gender and poverty is a potent
source of exclusion.” The poorest girls are the ones being left
behind in education progress. In sub-Saharan Africa, at recent
rates of progress, as a group all the richest boys will be completing
primary school by 2021 and lower secondary school by 2041.
However, all the poorest girls will only be completing primary
school by 2086 and lower secondary school by 2111. Additionally,
disability, geographic location and ethnicity influence both access
to school and achievement. Gender inequalities interact with other
Camfed is an active UNGEI GAC member dedicated
to fighting poverty in sub-Saharan Africa by supporting
marginalized girls to go to school, succeed and lead. In
2014, Camfed directly supported 518,290 marginalized
children in Ghana, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania and
Zimbabwe to go to school, including comprehensive
support for 118,247 marginalized girls to attend
secondary school. Girls’ secondary school completion
rates in Camfed-supported areas are consistently
higher than national averages despite these girls’
more disadvantaged backgrounds (e.g., 92.5 per cent
completion rate in Camfed-supported areas in Ghana,
compared with 62 per cent nationally, and 97 per cent
in Camfed-supported districts in Zimbabwe, compared
with 75 per cent in non-partner districts). Pass rates
among girls receiving Camfed support are high (e.g., 85
per cent pass rate in Camfed-supported areas compared
with 73 per cent nationally in Malawi’s 2013/2014 Junior
Certificate of Education examinations)..
CAMFED: ACTION ACROSS THE FOUR PRIORITIES - BECAUSE IT’S ALL CONNECTED P
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The poorest girls are being left behind in education progress.
Based on current trends, it will take until 2086 for all
the poorest girls to be able to complete primary education
(the poorest boys will achieve this in 2069),
and into the next century for all poorest girls to get a second-
ary education.(Gender Summary of EFA GMR 2013/14)
FEMALE
POOR
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23 UNGEI ANNUAL REPORT 2014
inequalities and gender gaps typically widen in marginalized groups
– so it is the disabled girl, the poor rural girl, the aboriginal girl
and the girl in a country in conflict and crisis who is least likely to
attend school, remain in school and learn.
Poverty, gender inequalities and disability interact to place girls at
particular risk. A survey of 3,706 primary school children aged 11–14
years in Uganda found that 24 per cent of disabled girls reported
experiencing sexual violence at school compared with 12 per cent
of non-disabled girls. Children affected by HIV and AIDS, orphans
and children from families affected by HIV and AIDS are at higher
risk of bullying, sexual violence and exploitation in school.
Poor girls in rural areas have a more difficult time participating
fully in the classroom and tend to have lower scores in reading and
mathematics compared to boys.
Even though much of UNGEI’s policy advocacy work is directly
or indirectly designed to raise awareness of the need for strong
learning outcomes and for inclusion of marginalized children, UNGEI
expects to further develop its policy advocacy work around these
priorities in the coming years. n
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15-year-old Namugga Veronica has been taught how to write by her older brother at their home in Kayunga District, Central Uganda. Veronica suffers from Celebral palsy since a bout of under treated celebral malaria- her mother is forced to leave her alone at times, locked away from those who will take sexual advantage of her disability and lack of mobilization.
24 UNGEI ANNUAL REPORT 2014
UA big leap forward as the Good Practice Fund takes off
UNGEI aims to expand the evidence base around what works to
improve access to and quality of education for girls, and to promote
the exchange of knowledge and experience. The partnership was
extremely active in this area in 2014, in ways that fed directly into
furthering its policy advocacy agenda and also stimulated action by
partners and stakeholders to expand core knowledge around girls’
education and gender equality.
UNGEI’S GOOD PRACTICE FUNDAs part of its commitment to be a knowledge broker around girls’
education, in late 2013, UNGEI launched the Good Practice Fund.
The Fund is designed to provide an opportunity for good practices
– especially those that are lesser known among development
practitioners – to be systematically documented and shared within
and between countries and regions.
The Good Practice Fund received 320 applications. The positive
response showed a real need for reflecting and reporting on
experience, and recognition that for many small organizations, this
is a luxury rather than a standard part of their work. The applicant
pool provided a snapshot of the extent of activity and innovation
in girls’ education and gender equality. Three regions accounted
for the majority of applications for sharing experiences: Eastern
and Southern Africa (34 per cent); South Asia (27 per cent); and
West and Central Africa (24 per cent). The majority of applications
were from a small number of countries – Afghanistan, Bangladesh,
Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, India, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Pakistan,
Sierra Leone, South Africa, Uganda and Tanzania – accounting for
nearly 70 per cent of all applications.
BUILDING, SHARING AND LEVERAGING KNOWLEDGE
ERITREA, GUINEA AND
MALAWI: Countries where the Gender Analysis Tool was piloted in 2014.
GOOD PRACTICE: Well documented and as-sessed programming prac-tices that provide evidence
of success and impact and are valuable for replication, scaling up and further study
GENDER ANALYSIS TOOL:
will help national decision-makers assess whether their education systems are ready to address gender concerns.
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Grant recipients were selected in three rounds of review,
in which the GAC task team played a key role. Ultimately, 17
organizations were awarded funds through the Good Practice Fund
to document their work.
UNGEI partnered with the Overseas Development Institute (ODI)
to provide technical support to the awardees, including templates
and guidance as well as one-on-one help as needed. The aim was
to strengthen the skills of participating organizations to define key
elements of success (what works) and identify lessons and results,
in addition to promoting peer learning among the grantees.
ODI-supported documentation and dissemination of good
practices will take place throughout 2015. ODI will also provide a
summary of lessons learned and good practices across the range of
experiences documented through the Good Practice Fund.
The benefits of establishing the benefits of establishing the
Fund have already multiplied, in 2014, the West and Central Africa
UNGEI partnership adopted the Fund’s criteria for good practice
and adapted the approach to their region. The WCAR Good
Practice project focused on the experience of the five key partners
– Plan WCARO, Aide et Action, the Forum for African Women
Educationalists (FAWE), the Africa Network Campaign on Education
For All (ANCEFA) and UNICEF – in advancing girls’ education and
gender equality. These organizations combined efforts to create
a framework for sharing knowledge and experience in order to
coordinate activities and supports. Their final report highlights
the best practices of relevant partner organizations in the field of
girls’ and women’s education by laying out some of the strategies,
initiatives and processes that have worked well.
PROMOTING KNOWLEDGE AROUND MENSTRUAL HYGIENE MANAGEMENT
Sound menstrual hygiene management policies are key to keeping
girls in school when they reach puberty and are therefore also
central to UNGEI’s advocacy priority of increasing girls’ transition to
secondary education and post-primary opportunities. Many girls do
not attend school during their menstrual period due to a lack of clean
toilets that provide privacy and proper disposal facilities for sanitary
towels. A recent study conducted by UNICEF in Sierra Leone found
that 21.3 per cent of girls responding reported missing school when
on their menstrual period. Data collected from UNICEF programme
BUILDING, SHARING AND LEVERAGING KNOWLEDGE
MENSTRUAL HYGIENE
MANAGEMENT is key to keeping
adolescent girls in school and learning.
UNGEI supported the virtual Menstrual
Hygiene Management in Schools Conference
in October 2014, and did social media outreach
and live-tweeting.
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countries also revealed that a mere 50 per cent of primary schools in
developing countries have basic sanitation and water facilities.
An important way to promote effective MHM policies is to build
the evidence around the current situation and on effective practices
and policies. While MHM was a new area of focus for UNGEI, in
2014, the partnership was increasingly active in promoting evidence
building and knowledge sharing about MHM. After securing
CND$7.3 million in funding from the Government of Canada in
2013 to strengthen evidence and establish standards in MHM
practices, the UNGEI Secretariat and UNICEF also worked with
Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and Emory
University to prepare for the 3rd Annual Virtual Menstrual Hygiene
Management in WASH in Schools Conference in October 2014. In
addition, UNGEI developed a gender analysis module for an Emory
University course on how to do formative research related to MHM,
which was a central feature of UNICEF’S 14-country WASH in
Schools for Girls programme.
At the regional level, in South Asia, UNGEI worked closely with
UNICEF’s water, sanitation and hygiene team to support the WASH
in Schools for Girls programmes in India, Nepal and Pakistan. The
goal is to increase understanding of current MHM practices and
incorporate gender-sensitive MHM into current WASH programmes.
Key outcomes include completion of pre-testing, design of an MHM
toolkit in Pakistan, and partnering with the Department of Education
in Nepal to promote sanitation programmes.
Topics of a few of the forthcoming case studies
show the variety of approaches and contexts in which
work around girls’ education and gender equality is
moving forward:
• LEAVE NO GIRL BEHIND: Lessons from promoting
primary education for girls living with disability in
Bangladesh
• RIGHTS-BASED LEARNING FOR BUILDING LIFE SKILLS
IN PAKISTAN
• REACHING GIRLS LIVING AND WORKING ON THE
STREETS IN NAIROBI: Learning and livelihoods for
girls and their families
• TWENTY YEARS OF INNOVATION ACROSS A
CONTINENT THROUGH GENDER RESPONSIVE
PEDAGOGY: Learning lessons from FAWE
• INCREASING EDUCATION OUTCOMES BY REACHING
BEYOND THE CLASSROOM: Empowering rural Kenyan
girls though reproductive health and hygiene
• LOW-COST COMMUNITY SCHOOLS IN GHANA:
Documenting effectiveness and building
sustainability
• CIVIC AWARENESS AND ENGAGEMENT: Leadership
and confidence as a foundation for girls’
education in Tanzania
• A SAFE SPACE FOR LEARNING AND REBUILDING IN
GUINEA: A welcome centre for pregnant girls and
young mothers and their babies
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320The number of
applications received by the UNGEI Good Practice Fund and reviewed in 2014.
28 UNGEI ANNUAL REPORT 2014
ADVOCACY AND ACTION FOR BETTER MONITORING
In 2014, UNGEI was actively engaged in a series of events
focusing on data, evidence and tools for monitoring gender equality
in education. The UNGEI Secretariat presented a brief on education
at the Data2X Expert Group meeting on gender data gaps, hosted
by the UN Foundation Data2X Initiative in Washington, DC, in
February. With USAID, UNGEI also co-hosted a working session on
Monitoring Gender Equality in Education that same month. n©
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11,100:The number of times the EFA Global Monitoring Report 2013/2014 Gender Summary was downloaded between March 2014 and June 2015.
29 UNGEI ANNUAL REPORT 2014
UStrengthening the Global Advisory Committee, renewing the regional networks
UNGEI’s underlying story in 2014 was one of revitalization and
renewal of its partnerships at all levels.
GLOBAL PARTNERSUNGEI governance reform was in full swing in 2014, with the
newly established Steering Committee in place and working
to strengthen ownership and effectiveness of the Global
Advisory Committee. Under the leadership of Vanya Berrouet,
representing the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade
and Development, the Steering Committee launched a campaign
to expand the GAC by bringing in new members with new skills,
and representing new stakeholder groups. In 2014, this included
CARE, the international NGO dedicated to fighting poverty
through empowerment; FHI 360, a non-profit development
organization focusing on using integrated solutions to address
development problems; the Comparative, International and
Development Education Centre (CIDEC) at the Ontario Institute
of Studies in Education; and the Youth Advocacy Group of the UN
Secretary General’s Global Education First Initiative (YAG-GEFI).
Each of these organizations offers its expertise, as well as new
perspectives, to further UNGEI’s mission. In December 2014, the
GAC also agreed to move forward on three engagement strategies
in 2015 to help further strengthen the partnership – country level
actors; youth; and academia/research organizations, with a focus
on Southern academics.
PROMOTING PARTNERSHIP,
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UNGEI continues to engage audiences through its social media channels, which are growing at an impressive rate: The number of Facebook followers increased by 95 per cent between August and December 2014 and now stands at over 100,000.
SOCIAL MEDIA: “When you invest in a girl’s educa-tion, she feeds herself, her children, her community and her nation,”
ERNA SOLBERG, Prime Minister of Norway, DAVOS, 2014.
30 UNGEI ANNUAL REPORT 2014
Past collaboration with academic institutions has been very
rewarding for UNGEI, in particular in terms of building knowledge
and analyses and creating a solid foundation for evidence-based
advocacy. In 2014, UNGEI made a concerted effort to strengthen
partnerships with academics. In addition to bringing academic
partners into the GAC, UNGEI also collaborated with BAICE (the
British Association for International and Comparative Education) to
strengthen research and writing skills of local researchers based in
East Africa – and plans were made for a similar process in South
Asia, to be carried out in 2015.
CIDEC is the first academic institution to be represented on
the GAC. CIDEC quickly became active in UNGEI discussions and
meetings, providing feedback on post-2015 gender targets and
indicators, and amplifying the knowledge and messages of UNGEI
through presentations and talks in its own academic milieu, at the
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto.
UNGEI expects CIDEC to help open a gateway to greater engagement
with scholars and scholarly institutions in the southern hemisphere.
UNGEI PRIORITIES LEVERAGED THROUGH GAC MEMBERS: EXAMPLES FROM 2014
In 2014, Plan International continued its collaborative work
with UNGEI, in particular through efforts to raise the profile of
SRGBV, an issue demanding global attention. The organization led
in-depth field research through multi-country studies, such as ‘Hear
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UNGEI joins around 30 other organiza-tions committed to
CHARGE, an effort launched by the Clinton Global Initiative in 2014. CHARGE (which stands for Collaborative for Harnessing Ambition and Resources for Girls’
Education) will focus on ‘second-generation’ girls’ education issues.
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Adelaide Sosseh has been a member of the UNGEI Global Advisory Council since 2005, and currently sits on the Steering Committee. Adelaide represents the Africa Network Campaign of Education for All (ANCEFA), an umbrella organization of national coalitions established in 2002.
What are you hearing from the national coalitions about current girls’ education issues?
The main challenge is the completion rate and transition from primary to secondary education, especially the completion of six years of primary education. In most countries a high percentage of girls start primary school (about 90 per cent) but by primary six, their numbers have dwindled down to about 20 per cent. This is the picture across much of Africa.
Major factors causing these rates include poverty, and traditional factors, such as early marriage and girls needing to work in the household. Another serious concern is violence in and around schools. This issue has been complicated more with all the conflicts across
the continent and attacks on schools, which affect and target girls in particular. The main example we all know about is Nigeria, but we see similar situations across Africa.
The quality of education is another important issue. Often girls attend school yet do not have the necessary skills or competencies to survive in modern economies. This is linked to a great shortage of teachers (approximately 2.1 million more teachers will be needed by 2030 in sub-Saharan Africa), and a clear need for more female teachers so girls can have role models. Teachers face many challenges with limited capacity to manage in the environment in which they find themselves. This lack of resources means that often teachers are not willing to work in rural areas where the need is great.
How are the national coalitions dealing with these issues?
Every country is different and chooses to focus on different issues. In terms of advocacy, some focus on fee-free education, while others focus on mechanisms for increasing learning outcomes. Girls’ empowerment is another
major focus. Often girls are told they should be seen and not heard, but many of the national coalitions have adopted the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) concept of stand up and speak out in order to change this viewpoint and empower girls to do just that. Many national coalitions also focus on the health aspects such as providing sanitation, AIDS education and tackling early pregnancy.
How does UNGEI fit into the work that ANCEFA is doing?
UNGEI is a very helpful advocacy partner to ANCEFA. UNGEI has access to some advocacy channels that ANCEFA does not. Through UNGEI, members of ANCEFA can be sure their voice and their issues will be represented.
Everybody keeps saying that the national level is the heart of UNGEI, and most of the national coalitions are able to tap into the UNGEI networks at this level. However, the UNGEI networks at the country level bring in a wider partnership outside the national education coalitions’ initial reach. They encourage collaboration on many cross-cutting areas such as health, protection and poverty alleviation, areas that are beyond the scope of education but still affect girls. Yes, this partnership has been valuable.
A CONVERSTATION WITH: ADELAIDE SOSSEH
Our Voices’ and ‘Promoting Equality and Safety in Schools’. Plan
presented these research findings at the high-level panel event
for the 59th Commission on the Status of Women. As an active
member of the Global Partners Working Group on SRGBV, Plan
chairs the Advocacy Task Team working with other members to
develop resources and tools that contribute to global advocacy and
policy efforts. Plan and UNGEI also worked together effectively
when responding to the consultation on the proposed post-2015
indicators. This response focused on expanding the conversation
around measuring gender equality in education beyond parity, and
bringing a focus on measuring SRGBV as a key barrier to education.
World Vision was active across all of UNGEI’s policy advocacy
priorities in 2014. The Improving Girls’ Access through Transforming
Education (IGATE) project in Zimbabwe – where World Vision works
as a member of an 8-member consortium — is one example of
this. IGATE supports marginalized girls through comprehensive,
PROMOTING PARTNERSHIP, BUILDING CAPACITY
32 UNGEI ANNUAL REPORT 2014
community-based solutions. Its focus is addressing SRGBV through
empowering girls and parents using strategies including Girls’ Clubs
and Mothers’ Clubs and improving learning outcomes through
Reading Clubs and teacher training. The programme promotes girls’
transition to secondary and post-primary education by reducing
barriers of distance through the Bicycle Education Empowerment
Program and bolsters families’ abilities to sustain girls’ post-primary
education through Village Savings and Lending Groups. In 2014,
seven of nine programming approaches, which are designed to
foster change in attitudes and behaviour among all actors in a
community, were rolled out in 10 of Zimbabwe’s 59 districts.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) continued to partner with UNGEI across
a range of UNESCO’s areas of work. The Section of Learning
and Teachers represents UNESCO on the GAC and the Steering
Committee. In 2014,UNESCO’ Section of Health and Global
Citizenship Education partnered with UNGEI and the French
Ministry of Foreign Affairs to initiate a new network on SRGBV,
the Global Partners Working Group on SRGBV. Building on a
longstanding relationship with the UNESCO EFA Global Monitoring
Report, the GMR and UNGEI produced the GMR Gender Summary,
and on the occasion of International Women’s Day, launched
a policy brief on SRGBV. Further work commenced in close
cooperation with UNGEI and USAID to look at conceptualizing
and measuring SRGBV. Through its International Institute for
Educational Planning, UNESCO also worked with UNGEI, GPE and
Plan International to develop a Gender Analysis Tool, designed to
help countries prepare gender-responsive education sector plans.
UNESCO also closely engaged UNGEI in the post-2015 education
agenda process, ensuring gender issues are reflected throughout.
At the regional level, UNESCO continued to actively engage in the
East Asia and the Pacific UNGEI, as co-chair of the partnership.
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REGIONAL DYNAMISM SHAPES THE UNGEI OF TOMORROW
In 2014, there was significant progress at the regional and
national levels in strengthening and building partnerships to advance
girls’ education among national governments.
In fact, regional partnerships drove much of UNGEI’s dynamism
in 2014. The four regional partnership networks – in West and
Central Africa, Eastern and Southern Africa, East Asia and the
Pacific and in South Asia – each found ways to renew their
commitment to promoting girls’ education and gender equality.
In West and Central Africa, an UNGEI regional workshop
in July 2014 brought together NGOs and national government
representatives of nearly every country in the region, the UNGEI
Secretariat, UNICEF, and regional organizations, including FAWE,
Plan International, Aide et Action and ANCEFA. The goal of the
meeting was to revitalize regional and national partnerships around
girls’ education. The group shared understandings of current trends
in girls’ education status in the region, identified specific regional
challenges to girls’ education and gender equality, and shared
updates on the strategic environment for education reform. One
result was the establishment of a common roadmap for collaboration
and partnership in the region – so crucial given the persistence of
gender inequality in the region despite years of significant efforts.
The WCAR partnership also continued to explore political and
institutional barriers to girls’ education through research originally
begun in 2013 with four countries (Burkina Faso, Côte
d’Ivoire, the Niger, and Mauritania), and in 2014 expanded
to include four more (the Congo, Mali, Senegal and Togo).
The findings have been startling and have highlighted
critical gaps in the ability of national systems to address
the education needs of girls. Plans are underway to
translate the methodology and country findings in order
to share the approach for use in other regions.
The network of experts and organizations that forms
the heart of the UNGEI regional partnership in East Asia
and the Pacific continued to grow in 2014. One outgrowth
of this, and an event central to the year, was the Regional
Gender Forum held in Bangkok in August 2014, organized
jointly by UNGEI East Asia and the Pacific and UNICEF’s
regional office. The Forum brought together civil society
organizations, NGOs, UN agencies and five national
governments. Discussions focused on SRGBV and issues
Sento Thulla, 16, smiles as she sits outside her home in the city of Port Loko, Northern Province. As a small child, Sento tried to flee the civil war with her mother, but the two were separated when her mother was shot. Sento lived in an orphanage for years before being adopted.
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of marginalization. The Forum was a great platform for information-
sharing (lessons learned, case studies, best practices); it resulted in
strengthened collaboration among UNGEI partners in the region and
greater commitment to country-level partnership work.
UNGEI East Asia and the Pacific also began documenting the
situation for girls and boys with disabilities in the region and its
impact on their right to education. A draft working paper geared
towards policy makers, curriculum developers, programme officers
and researchers outlined some of the major obstacles in the region
surrounding gender, disabilities and education. One of the key findings
is that girls with disabilities are among the most marginalized groups
when it comes to educational opportunity at all levels; they are also
at higher risk for school-related gender-based violence. Despite this,
funding for special needs education appears to be channelled more
readily to boys, leaving girls facing greater difficulties in accessing
education services and resources. Additionally, education strategies
and programmes targeting girls rarely take the needs of girls with
disabilities into consideration. The UNGEI office continues to work
with partners to strengthen the working paper.
In South Asia, UNGEI welcomed Sanaullah Panezai as the new
regional focal point, more than one year after the retirement of
the previous regional focal point. The UNGEI partnership in the
region focused on strengthening national-level UNGEI networks.
Several Gender in Education Forums helped build evidence, share
knowledge and strengthen awareness around issues relevant to
each specific country context.
For years, the South Asia Regional Partnership has been extremely
active in creating knowledge products. This practice continued in
2014. And the partnership also launched the Girls’ Education in
Afghanistan Campaign, key theme of celebrating the 25th Anniversary
on the Convention on the Rights of the Child in South Asia.
At the country level, UNGEI Pakistan carried out a rigorous
evaluation of Young Champion’s Initiative (YCI). YCI was a flagship
initiative of UNGEI South Asia from 2009 to 2013, involving youth
as role models to promote girls’ education. The evaluation critically
assessed YCI, while engaging key stakeholders and UNGEI local
partners, and drew lessons for future programming. The Young
Champion’s Initiative as a means to address the issue of out-of-
school children, particularly its focus on girls, was highly relevant in
the context of Pakistan.
The UNGEI partnership in Nepal was able to document good
practices in girls’ education and gender equality there in 2014.
And in Afghanistan, UNICEF, other partners and the Ministry of
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THE UNGEI PARTNERSHIP IN MALAWI (the National Girls’
Education Network), on the occasion of the
International Day of the Girl Child, lobbied for
passage of a divorce and family bill, which would raise the marriage age
for girls to 18.
35 UNGEI ANNUAL REPORT 2014
Education launched the Girls’ Education in Afghanistan Campaign,
a key theme of celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Convention
on the Rights of the Child in South Asia. The campaign focused
on key progress made in girls’ education and gender equality in
Afghanistan during the last 25 years and framed a programme
priority agenda to advance girls’ education in the country.
The UNGEI regional partnership in Eastern and Southern Africa was
reactivated in 2014. Key partners include the UNICEF regional office
and the UNGEI regional focal point, the UNESCO regional office,
FAWE and Plan International. These partners agreed on an ambitious
plan to enhance collaboration and leverage their various strengths as
they move towards the future. In 2014, the piloting of the UNGEI-
GPE Gender Analysis Tool in the region introduced gender-responsive
sector planning and created new relationships with country actors.
The tool was piloted in Eritrea, Malawi and Guinea. The country-based
piloting was found to provide valuable learning opportunities for the
government and other participants in the process, as well as assisting
the development of the Gender Analysis Tool itself.
Going forward, the UNGEI partnership in Eastern and Southern
Africa aims to continue building cohesiveness in advocacy and
action efforts by developing common advocacy messages, joint
studies and reports to influence the regional focus on girls’
education and gender equality. n
Wendy Chola is seen in the Grade 9 classroom at the Chile Basic School in Mansa in Zambia’s Luapula Province in November 2011. Chola returned to school to continue her education after having a baby. The Zambian govern-ment’s re-entry policy encourages girls who fall pregnant to go back to school.
2014 UNGEI Global Advisory Committee meeting in Bangkok, Thailand
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THANK YOUThank you to all the individuals, organizations and governments who connected with and through UNGEI in 2014 to champion the cause of girls’ education and gender equality.