GPE approves over $176m in new grants to Benin, Burundi, and others

The Global Partnership for Education (GPE) is putting up US$176.6 million in new grants to work in supporting high-quality schooling for children in Benin, Burundi, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Tanzania and Uzbekistan. The grants were approved by the GPE Board of Directors.

According to a statement from GPE, the new funding will help the governments of the six countries to strengthen their national education systems through a set of interventions ranging from more and better early childhood development, accelerated early grade learning, training for teachers, the creation and distribution of high-quality learning materials, improved physical infrastructure, more rigorous education data collection, monitoring and analysis and more professional education management.

“These grants are prime examples of GPE’s core transformative power: to provide developing countries the essential resources they need to educate all their children,” said Julia Gillard, Chair of GPE’s Board of Directors and former Prime Minister of Australia.

“GPE financing is at work in countries around the world helping governments to give children, particularly girls and other vulnerable groups, the knowledge and skills to thrive,” she added.

GPE’s results-based funding model makes one-third of each grant only available once countries have met agreed goals to improve the efficiency of their education system such as more children staying in and completing school; enhance equity to ensure undeserved groups of children get access to quality education; and produce better learning outcomes.

Three of the countries: Nepal, Papua New Guinea and Uzbekistan also received GPE Multiplier grants, which provide US$1 for every US$3 countries raise in new and additional funding from other sources.

The GPE Multiplier is an innovative finance instrument that catalyzes more and better investment in education. Since 2018, 12 countries have secured more than US$100 million in allocations, which has mobilized more than US$440 million in support of quality education.

In the new approval, Benin will receive a grant of US$19.4 million to address education priorities. Burundi’s grant of US$25.6 million will help boost the quality of children’s learning by building more primary school classrooms in the most vulnerable areas.

A grant of US$24.2 million will go to Nepal to focus on enhancing the quality of schooling to drive better learning outcomes. Papua New Guinea (PNG) will receive a grant of US$7.4 million. Over the last decade.

Tanzania’s US$90 million grant will build on its successful efforts to enroll more children especially the most vulnerable. And Uzbekistan will receive a Multiplier grant of US$10 million which is mobilized alongside almost US$60 million in additional co-financing from the International Development Association and the Global Partnership for Results-based Approaches.