Uganda CP received a delegation from the international office on August 1st – 10th 2010, to provide support to its education thematic programming and policy engagements. The four member team comprised of two IET staff ie Debdutt Panda, Victorine Kemonou Djitrinou and peers from ESAEN who included Florence Kinyua and Kassaw Checkole. At CP level a number participated in the exercise and these included the thematic lead – Elizabeth Ddungu Nakiboneka, Policy Manager – Paul Ojuman, Building Local Democracy Lead – Rebecca Kukundakwe and the respective DI staffs. The purpose of the peer support visit was to make a rapid assessment of the previous and on-going education interventions in the CP through interaction and experience sharing with AAIU and partner staff, policy makers and implementers both at local and national level and beneficiaries.
The outcomes of the support visit are envisaged to input into the CP’s up-coming new CSP as well as the specific thematic strategy development processes, with the following specific objectives:
· To review the CP education work to determine progress, outcomes (expected and unexpected)
· Review national theory of change (methodology under the RBA) and AAIU policy work on education (identify Achievements/strengths, gaps/ weaknesses, opportunities and suggest strategies for improvement) at local and national levels,
· Review some of AAUI’s partnerships at local and national level and how they have advanced Education work as well as the national external environment and how it affects Education work
· Identify potential areas for fundraising and provide/ support linkages to possible funding opportunities
· Identify and suggest key strategic priorities for the next CSP (2012- 2017),
· Identify good best practices/case studies for further development and sharing widely,
· Make recommendations and suggest strategies for improvement.
While in Uganda, the team managed to make field visits to 2 DIs that focus on the education theme in the Northern Uganda region ie Masindi and Amuru. While in the field they interacted with different stakeholders who included district education officials and leaders. Apart from experience sharing about existing local education issues, planned and on-going local and central government interventions, the team managed to influence the district to commit themselves to taking action to address their education challenges without expecting NGOs to take over government responsibility as the primary duty bearer. For instance in Masindi, the District Education Officer (DEO) had a belief that government can’t afford to feed primary school children. But after a long discussion and sharing of different experiences he actually accepted it as a possible action and a move in the right direction. This commitment to take action and support policy advocacy processes to change the UPE policy towards mid day meals provision by the government still needs to be followed up with education stakeholders in the district while linking up with national level processes.
And while in Amuru in a meeting with the DEO and the District Resident Commissioner (RDC) who is the local president’s representative, the team managed to cause them to commit to taking action about teacher numbers, teacher efficiency through effective supervision and management and teacher quality. The RDC promised to lobby the district council to make enough budget provision to the service commission to be able to recruit teachers to meet the ceiling provided for by the ministry.
At a national level, the team met with members of the national education coalition and the discussion was helpful in paving the way forward for the revival of the coalition secretariat function and participation of coalition members. This has been followed up and there is quite good progress in the right direction for the coalition. Several follow up meetings have been taking place spearheaded by AAIU, SAVE and UNICEF.
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