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PERI Panel Presentation: Internal DRAFT
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Leveraging private sector support to achieve basic education outcomes: Lessons learned
from Morocco and Cameroon
Vijitha M. Eyango, Ph D
Chief of Education, UNICEF Cameroon
Abstract:
We are already well into the 21st century and have to be realistic about the current
funding landscape. It is an era of escalating education needs, scarce resources and
shrinking donor funding pools. New financing arrangements offered by the private
sector if carefully cultivated offer one part of the solution. This paper begins with a
the backdrop of private sector support to basic education,1 then moves to discuss
two case studies from Morocco and Cameroon and ends with a discussion of the
potential role private sector financing arrangements can play in achieving primary
education outcomes.
Introduction
Over the past decades, shrinking budgets coupled with the financial crisis have
crippled the public sector’s ability to fully finance primary education. Traditional donor
funding for education is shrinking. The relevance of education is also in question as
education continues to churn out graduates with skills that do not meet labor market needs.
Within this scenario of scarce resources juxtaposed with increasing basic education needs,
private sector has a role to play.
Public-Private Partnerships (PPP)
There are a variety of public-private partnerships (PPP) in play. Traditional PPP’s in
education are those driven by public sector’s need to buy into the public government sector
in an effort to improve efficiencies, competitiveness and the overall quality of education
service delivery. These kinds of PPPs include government contracting with private sector
for school construction, school voucher systems, and private sector training to improve
budget and raising management standards and capacity (Patrinos et al, World Bank, Fennel).
In countries such as India, such partnerships emerged at the tertiary level with the increased
demand for Indian university education; this model has been suggested as a “panacea to ills
of the Indian state school system” (World Bank, 2005 as quoted in Fennel). Other models
1 Basic education is defined in this paper as primary education consistent with Education for All and MDG goals
of universal primary education for boys and girls.
PERI Panel Presentation: Internal DRAFT
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of PPP’s include the emergence of private schools as alternatives to the public school
system.
Other PPP’s include initiatives such as NGO support for education through initiatives
implemented by Prathan2 or Room to Read3, who act as education “facilitators” through
children sensitization to the education process and addressing issues of low retention
through reading, writing and mathematics. Examples of education “facilitation” through
donor support is also evidenced by the accelerated re-entry programs for out of school
children as implemented by USAID in its post-9/11 education policy in Afghanistan and Iraq
and UNICEF Cameroon that is using the same model for school re-entry. (Eyango 2002 and
UNICEF 2011)
This paper deals with a different but complementary dimension of the PPP
discourse. It goes over the emergence, especially over the last decade, of public-private
corporate social responsibility models of partnering aimed at catalyzing government and
donor support to improve education outcomes. It argues that private sector has a key role
to play in financing basic education service delivery and improving the relevance of
education. Private sector partnerships can also be capitalized upon for advocacy and
outreach through support of innovative communication and messaging for education
campaigns or calls.
Public-Private Partnerships: Key players
The World Bank and the International Finance Corporation were amongst the first
multilaterals to look at public-private linkages and potential for achieving education
outcomes. In addition to innovative financing and differentiated business models, the
model in play related to private sector support in education service delivery thus
accelerating the process of coming close to MDG and EFA goals. The World Bank’s
International Finance Corporation (IFC) in 1998 put together EdInvest (http://www1.ifc.org)
as a venue for public-private partnering in education; its primary purpose was the creation
of an information portal for data on private education at all levels. While a key public-
private model, it was an approach and framework linked to privatization of education
service delivery—making the case for private sector taking over service delivery roles in
2 www.pratham.org
3 www.roomtoread.org
PERI Panel Presentation: Internal DRAFT
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education rather than an approach aimed at galvanizing partnerships to undertake
development programs.
Amongst the bilateral agencies, USAID (US Agency for International Development)
was the pioneer development agency to create a platform for leveraging private sector
support for development through USAID-private sector partnerships. USAID’s Global
Development Alliance (GDA) created in 2001 had as its underlying philosophy that social and
economic conditions in poor and transitional countries are improved when public and
private sectors work together (USAID, 2001). In addition to supporting public-private
program calls globally, it also built a strategic framework for education partnering on key
themes. One example was USAID’s Education and Employment Alliance (EEA) which was
launched in 2005 and with a goal of to create new public-private partnerships that would
expand and improve education and employment opportunities for underprivileged youth in
six countries of the Asia and Middle East Bureau’s scope: Egypt, India, Indonesia, Morocco,
Pakistan, and the Philippines. This has expanded to a larger platform for leveraging
government development assistance through private sector partnering; last week another
thematic venture launched by the GDA office “Women and Girls Lead Global” is a public-
private alliance created between Independent Television Service (ITVS), U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID), and Ford Foundation, in cooperation with lead NGO
partner CARE.
US Department of State followed closely behind USAID’s GDA and launched its own
call for public private partnerships for development. Even through different
administrations, the focus of this office has remained the same—strategic partnering with
private sector can improve diplomacy and development outcomes. The Secretary’s Global
Partnership Initiative is State Department’s current entry point for public-private
collaboration through a call for partnerships that leverage private sector strengths in
innovation and business resources of partners for greater impact.
DFID (UK Development Aid), also a player in the bilateral public-private dialogue may have
arrived later in the game but has capitalized on lessons learned and built thematic areas for
development gain. A recent example currently under review is their partnership with Nike
Foundation to support girls. DFID’s “Girl Hub”, launched in 2010 targeted the needs and
rights of adolescent girls. It involved a joint sharing of resources and expertise between
Nike Foundation and DFID over a three-year period with a total DFID grant of £11.6 million
PERI Panel Presentation: Internal DRAFT
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(with an additional £1.2 million of in-kind support) with Nike Foundation has commitment of
£0.8 million (plus £2 million of in-kind support). This significant contribution by a bilateral,
twinned with the strengths brought in by Nike Foundation is an example of innovative
public-private partnering that strengthens support for adolescent girls as the cornerstone
for development.
Microsoft Foundation Partnerships in Learning program is an example of a hybrid
public-private model that takes Microsoft’s strengths in ICT (Information and
Communication Technology) provision, training and education and in a South Africa
example touches all dimensions of programming for success while taking into consideration
accountability, management, and oversight. In an assessment of this partnership, Draxler’s
paper presented during the World Economic Forum presents the potential for success of the
Microsoft and South Africa private sector partnerships between Lonmin mine in the
Marikana region of the Northwest Province. Lonmin draws its pool of workers from 29 of its
local schools, but needed its workers to have high levels of digital literacy to be effective,
but local schools were unable to provide those skills to its students. Lonmin partnered with
Microsoft’s Partners in Learning and created 25 computer labs within 6 months reaching
15,000 students through 500 teachers. South African Department of Education became
more involved. All stakeholders benefited-Lonmin and Microsoft. At the school and
community level, students gained skills for employment, teachers resources, and Lonmin a
trained workforce. (Reza Bardient, Microsoft South Africa as quoted in Draxler 2008).
The above examples provide a glimpse into operational frameworks in play aimed at
leveraging private sector resources and expertise to achieve education and development
objectives at large. While rigorous evaluations still need to substantiate the success of the
above programs, these are the kinds of partnering that show potential in improving
educational outcomes in marginalized countries and communities.
The next part of the paper moves to country-specific examples from Morocco and
Cameroon to fully appreciate the potential and challenge of public-private partnering within
individual country contexts.
PERI Panel Presentation: Internal DRAFT
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Morocco4
In 1995, the same year in which Othman Benjeloun assumed CEO responsibilities for
BMCE Bank 5 (Banque Marocaine du Commerce Exterieur,), he founded BMCE Foundation.
BMCE’s vision was to partner with Morocco’s Ministry of Education to construct pre and
primary schools in 55 remote and under-served villages of the country. These villages which
originally did not have schools, water or electricity not only have this but schools and
teachers who instruct in mother tongue. A total of 63 state of the art primary schools have
been constructed in these rural zones, plus 136 pre-schools benefitting 14,000 students.
BMCE Foundation has expanded its reach and has also built schools in Mali and Senegal.
The model has recently expanded to Congo Brazzaville with the opening of a BMCE
Foundation school in September, 2012.
After school hours, these very schools are used for adult training and literacy, village
meetings and local enterprise; “The aim is to address the endemic isolation, poverty and
illiteracy that afflict rural Morocco by making the schools a hub for wider community
development, while respecting local cultural heritage and language.” (Synergos, 2004).
BMCE Foundation’s first group of 45 students finished this year their high school degree and
will pursue university studies, 60% are girls and 80% are Science major and 20% in
humanities.
Under the Foundation’s social responsibility mandate, the Foundation carefully
brokered a partnership that balanced differing agendas---humanitarian interest,
government ownership, shareholder anxiety, private sector visibility— with an end result
that provides Morocco’s most vulnerable children with new avenues of access to pre-school
and primary education. This program uses as its base the Ministry of Education’s official
curricula, adapted based on the needs of the student base and community context. In
addition to providing new avenues for education access through the construction of pre-
schools and primary schools, the program provides citizenship education, and schools built
using local resources and “architecture adapted to its environment” spaces.
4 Information provided is based on author’s field notes during three USAID missions to Morroco spanning
2003-2009
5 BMCE is one of the largest corporations on the Casablanca stock exchange with total assets of over $5 billion,
the BMCE Bank Group employs nearly 3,000 people in more than 200 branches throughout the country.
PERI Panel Presentation: Internal DRAFT
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The BMCE Bank Foundation has leveraged its base and mobilized a range of partners
and collaborators around a common agenda. For expertise in matters of pedagogy, adult
literacy and teacher training for example, partnerships with Morocco's National Education
Ministry and the Rene Descartes Paris V University have been cultivated.
Telecommunications firms are partnering with BMCE Foundation. The principality of
Monaco provided key early financial support for two schools in the southern regions of
Essaouira and Taroudant. In the north, Spain is supporting an additional two schools in the
regions of Al Hoceima and Nador, and the Spanish Telefonica Foundation is helping finance
a school in Tangier. Senegal's Health and Education Foundation has joined the foundation in
opening the first school outside of Morocco in Dakar. In another partnership, the Laureus
Sport for Good Foundation has contributed funding to integrate physical education and
sport in the curricula of the schools with a pilot project in the Marrakech region.
Sister banking institutions and their shareholders saw the transformational change
being made by BMCE bank and wanted to also give back to their communities. BMCE
created an “infectious model” of private sector support for education with other banks and
institutions now emulating its example. For example, Attijariwafbank provides scholarships
for university students and also helps in school rehabilitation. Banque Populaire has a
foundation involved in education. Zakoura Foundation has also supported elementary
education and pre-school education.
Cameroon6
In Cameroon despite relatively high national primary school enrollment rates (83% in
2008-09 and 87.9% in 2009-10), there are still major gender disparities in school attendance.
Compounding this situation, only 32% of Cameroon’s public schools have potable water and
only 45% have toilets (MINEDUB, 2011) and at least 30% of Cameroon’s population has to
fetch drinking water. These water carriers are mainly girls of school age but who are kept
away from school by tasks such as carrying water, looking after their siblings, or helping with
the farm. Of the children who begin primary education, over 45% drop out before the end
of the primary cycle with girls accounting for the large number of drop-outs.
This case study speaks to the tripartite partnership between UNICEF, Cameroon’s
Ministry of Basic Education and MTN (Mobile Telecommunications Network) Foundation7
6 Information gathered from author’s field reports (current posting is with UNICEF Cameroon)
7 Cameroon’s foremost cell-phone provider; headquartered in South Africa
PERI Panel Presentation: Internal DRAFT
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partnering in a direct response to water and sanitation (WASH) and girls’ education
disparities.
The first phase of the partnership aimed at improving student access to potable
water and sanitation facilities. An initial pilot study led to the construction of 6 wells
(providing potable water to 3,358 children) and the co-financing (UNICEF-MTN) of 3
classrooms in Sabongari-Ngangassaouo school in Cameroon’s Adamawa Region.
The partnership evolved and expanded to address the glaring gender disparities in
four of Cameroon’s most marginalized regions. Due to increasing gender disparities faced by
girls and in the face of new refugee migration and settlement patterns in Cameroon’s East
and Adamawa, MTN Foundation signed a new partnership which included an integrated
development program that provided drinking water and wells, toilets, new modular design
multipurpose rooms to include libraries and books, school supplies to include furniture and
textbooks, girls scholarships, community grants for school gardens.
Not only has this partnership resulted in infrastructure and scholarships for girls,
refugees and other vulnerable populations, it has also enabled improved public messaging
for back to school and hand-washing campaigns. The relationship has been carefully
cultivated and managed and Cameroon’s most vulnerable children are the ultimate
beneficiaries. (UNICEF, 2012)
MTN-UNICEF PPP: Lessons Learned
Monitoring and Evaluation
UNICEF’s comparative advantage was clearly visible when it came to monitoring,
evaluation and sustainability of infrastructure investments; this has been a struggle for most
donors and partners. School rehabilitation is often under par, and there are limited
government protocols for the monitoring and evaluating or to ensure sustainability of the
outcomes. Construction of water and sanitation infrastructure is sensitive; upon completion
there are no drinking water protocols to ensure consistent monitoring quality of the water
system for schools. The contamination of a well, even a year after donor engagement in the
project, poses not only a health hazard but negatively impacts on donor credibility in the
country.
MTN did not have any institutionalized protocols to address this problem; UNICEF as
a key partner to the government was able to: 1) set up an infrastructure task force chaired
by the two line ministries of Water Resources and Energy and Basic Education to serve in
PERI Panel Presentation: Internal DRAFT
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advisory capacity, 2) use leverage with the government resulting in the delegation of
government engineers to monitor infrastructure developments in the field ; and 3) Work
with the Ministry of Basic Education and the Ministry of Water Resources and Energy to
draft protocols for government monitoring and evaluation and sustainability of
rehabilitation and construction ventures.
UNICEF’s advantage in monitoring and evaluation was capitalized upon in the
implementation of an independent social survey to assess the impact of UNICEF
programming in the two regions to include the MTN-UNICEF program (Scientis, 2012)
Field based monitoring and evaluation ensured that infrastructure built was being put to
use. Field visits exposed students working outside locked classrooms, and toilets locked so
as to be kept in pristine condition. Regularly scheduled field monitoring enabled a rigorous
monitoring and evaluation modal
Communication and Advocacy
MTN’s comparative advantage in its communication strength was capitalized upon
by UNICEF. During Cameroon’s recent cholera outbreak, the partnership resulted in MTN’s
dissemination of the MINEDUB-UNICEF “our schools without cholera” campaign plus other
health and safety messages. This was done through an innovative SMS message campaign
whereby key health, safety and awareness messages were disseminated in both national
languages of English and French to all MTN subscribers. Given MTN’s base as the largest
phone company in the country, this ensured key message dissemination to the majority of
the country’s cell phone users.
MTN’s flexibility and means to disseminate key messages far outweighed UNICEF’s
communication channels. MTN’s communication advantage was further exemplified in its
creation of pubic visibility materials for the project. MTN has far superior advertising
expertise and their business is to capture the market share of clients. The partnership
enabled UNICEF to capitalize on MTN’s expert communication modalities with the end
result get key messages out to a wide audience.
Pilots Positioned for Scaling Up
Small pilots with the potential for going to scale as evidenced by the modular design
of the multipurpose room—MTN’s unrestricted financing allowed the MINEDUB and UNICEF
to design and implement pilot innovative multipurpose rooms in Bouam and Adinkol schools
in the East. This design offered the possibility to have 2 classrooms including a library with
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flexible partitions which could be expanded to make up one large room ideal for larger
training events and community discussions. This modular design is cost effective and
positioned for replication.
MTN support for ccommunity grants for school gardens as a part of the integrated
service package resulted in 7 community gardens. Within a few months, produce of the
school gardens was being harvested and being used to supplement school meals. This
innovation was possible due to the unrestricted nature of MTN funding and is a model that
is sustainable and already being replication neighbouring districts.
UNICEF’s Bureaucracy
Approval for UNICEF engagement with MTN took one year of discussion; UNICEF’s
New York headquarters had to vet MTN as a funding partner ahead of any formalization of
partnership. Once the approval was finalized, program implementation was able to move
forward swiftly. However, in construction implementation UNICEF construction
procurement protocols are bureaucratic. MTN interest in finalizing and branding its
infrastructure investments was slowed down by UNICEF procedures. UNICEF had to
announce the bid, receive tenders, choose a final provide and then launch the project with
phased payments to the contractor based on water and construction monitoring and
testing, while keeping 10% as a guarantee as a final pay-out to contractors 12 months after
the completion of construction. While this ensured an end product of high quality, the
timeline was not as fast as MTN Foundation would have wished; MTN shareholders and the
Foundation’s Board were anxious to see vulnerable children in their financed schools while
contractors had to adhere to UNICEF norms and protocols
Public Private Partnerships: Key Lessons
Public-private partnerships when carefully brokered combine the strengths of different
stakeholders to catalyze contributions to education objectives. Below are some additional
insights into PPP leveraging for social gain:
Communication: As evidenced by the MTN example, UNICEF capitalized upon the
communication side of MTN to design and disseminate key messages to an audience
MTN understands very well. MTN corporate has an ear on the Cameroonian client base,
and knows how to capture their attention with messaging, images and sound-bites far
more effectively than UNICEF Cameroon could hope to accomplish on its own. This is
evidenced in numerous other examples, for example Nike Foundation that was able to
PERI Panel Presentation: Internal DRAFT
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utilize strengths of its communication and advocacy team and create ate a user friendly
visual interface to get the energizing “Girl Effect” message that serves as a call for action
to lift adolescent girls out of poverty and make them future leaders 8. This video has
generated millions of views. This is the kind of partnership that brings the comparative
advantage of the corporate world to link up with corporate social responsibility and
make far reaching impact beyond what a traditional donor partnership. The selling
power private sector can provide is a key ingredient in this equation.
Measuring impact of communication and advocacy: While a clever communication and
advocacy campaign can be generated out of brilliant video of campaign, the role of the
implementing partner is to monitor and evaluate the impact of the communication
strategy. Strategic communication platforms need to ensure that changed behavior is
evidenced or changed policy depending on the anticipated outcome of the project (Julie
Coffman, 2003). Are we looking to effect behavior change or policy change, and what is
the measurement objective in the continuum of social mobilization? Without a clearly
articulated and measureable goals and impact measurements, a communication
campaign can fall flat on its face.
Monitoring and Evaluation. Assessments of bilateral public-private partnerships
question planning, governance, monitoring and evaluation, impact. (ICAI, Dewar et al).
Private sector does not have the technical capacity to monitor and evaluate education
outcomes. Moving outside communication theory and into standard monitoring and
evaluation frameworks, the “public” part of the PPP is its strength in identifying
measurable goals and outputs. For example, a program focused on “girls’
empowerment” should clearly identify interventions that will enable tracking,
monitoring, measuring and evaluating outcomes. Given that education interventions
are for the most part output driven, they are well positioned for rigorous impact
evaluation thus allowing stakeholders to have access to reliable quantitative
information.
Conclusion
The BMCE model illustrated direct engaged between a Foundation and government
to realize shared education objectives. In this model, BMCE’s position as a private sector
8 Ref: http://www.girleffect.org/video
PERI Panel Presentation: Internal DRAFT
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voice in Morocco gave BMCE Foundation the necessary credibility with the Ministry of
Education and Moroccan government at large to engage directly with their education
partnership. In the MTN-Ministry of Basic Education model, MTN Foundation did not have
the necessary leverage to engage directly with the government but recognized UNICEF’s
leadership in the education sector and its close partnership with the Ministry of Basic
Education. A careful cultivation of that relationship resulted in MTN Foundation-UNICEF
joint support to Cameroon’s Ministry of Basic Education to improve access to quality
education to Cameroon’s vulnerable children. This tripartite relationship took a year to
broker, but has already proven itself as a partnership to emulate.
It is clear that socially responsible public-private partnerships have a pivotal to play
in realizing development outcomes. However, the effectiveness and impact of public-
private partnerships lies in a clearly articulated joint strategy that exploits the comparative
advantage of each party while ensuring realistic outcomes and impacts with quantifiable
and measurable results.
About the author: Vijitha M. Eyango is currently UNICEF Cameroon’s Chief of Education. In addition to leading a core team of education specialists and administrative staff to support the Ministry of Basic Education’s education mandate, her focus has been on cultivating partnerships with bilateral, multi-lateral, private sector and civil society partners to achieve basic education outcomes. Prior to UNICEF, she was Senior Education and Gender Advisor for USAID’s Asia and Middle East Region, headquartered in Washington DC. Over a nine year period with USAID she designed, implemented and coordinated strategic education and gender programs in key countries of the region ranging from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Indonesia to Yemen and Morocco. Prior to USAID she was a professor at the University of California’s Graduate School of Education, Chair of UCLA’s Institute for the Study of Gender in Africa (ISGA) and Director of UCLA’s African Bibliography Project. She holds a PhD in International and Comparative Education from UCLA’s Graduate School of Education.
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