Fall 2021

Field Notes

m Economic Growth West Africa Trade and Investment Hub

The USAID-fundedWest Africa Trade & Investment Hub has executed 55 co-investment grants valued at more than $55million, which has leveragedmore than $800 in private sector support. Part of the U.S. government’s Prosper Africa strategy, the Trade Hub’s efforts to date will generatemore than 900,000 new jobs – with an em- phasis on women and youth – and generate $200million in exports. Bar ama Baro USAID-funded Bar ama Baro (“Teach or Learn” in Somali) program recently trained 700 accel- erated basic education teachers in SouthWest, Hirshabelle, Jubaland and Benadir regions of Somalia. The training helped improve teach- ers’ skills in preparation for the new school year ahead. Mozambique Vamos Ler!/ Let’s Read! The USAID Vamos Ler!/Let’s Read! program pivoted from hosting in-person teacher trainings to engaging education professionals in virtual trainings via WhatsApp. The mobile interactions engaged about 2,250 teachers and 1,396 school directors who learned practical instructional strategies to address common pedagogical challenges such as time-on-task; methods that improve students’ vocabulary, reading and speech skills; and heightening teacher awareness of gender issues in the classroom. Read II Project The USAID-funded READ II program provided training to more than 27,000 Ethiopian literacy and language teachers and school directors at 3,000 READ II inter- ventions schools. Since the training workshops, students have shown progress in their ability to identify letters, read words in Amharic and English and comprehend texts.

The new Inclusive Governance for Resilience program in Burkina Faso will work to build trust and resiliency to reduce violent extremism.

education sectors as students score poorly on national and international assessments, particularly early grade students who struggle with literacy. Many students are out of school, including a large population of students with disabilities. The myriad of internal challenges, including systemic barriers, resource limitations, poor coordination among agencies and the absence of reliable metrics, are blocking progress, despite the government’s best intentions to meet these burgeoning needs. Burkina Faso A nearly $20 million USAID award will support a new program called the Inclusive Governance for Resilience program. This pro- gram will work with government, civil society, private sector and citizens to co-create road- maps toward resilience; build citizens’ trust in the government to deliver food, education and economic services; and reduce the prolif- eration of violent extremist groups. Since August 2020, more than 1 million people particularly from Sahel, Centre-Nord, East and Nord regions have been displaced. An initial six-month inception period that began this past July will allow Creative and USAID to decide on priorities and next steps for the five-year government program. The program will be implemented by Creative in partnership with Lutheran World Relief. During this first phase, Creative will con- duct research by gathering citizens’ insights through Creative’s innovative Fragili- ty and Resilience Assessment Methodol- ogy (FRAMe®), which is a mapping tool that identifies sources that weaken the citizen-state relationship and citizen’s access to resources. Creative will also assess the capacity of com- mune administrations and civil society or- ganizations to address factors that counter peace and reform and apply that data when designing an action plan towards cohesion and resilience. When the program is implemented, local actors will contribute significantly to the In- clusive Governance for Resilience program by facilitating workshops with Village Devel- opment Committees and other community groups. These workshops will enable commu- nities to discuss constructive advocacy strat- egies instead of passive or violent approaches to agitate the government for services. n

m Education

active in the Sahel region for more than a decade, the Littoral states have been largely spared the brunt of the violence. Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea and Togo are all grap- pling with varying and intensifying internal instability dynamics that could expedite the expansion and consolidation of violent ex- tremist organizations if left unaddressed. Jordan Jordan education leaders have introduced major initiatives including a push to establish universal kindergarten and build 600 schools in the next 10 years, among other large-scale goals. The USAID five-year Jordan Technical Assistance Program will strengthen technical systems within the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Youth while Jordan seeks to improve poor education services. The program will improve technical as- sistance systems such as finance, human resource services, communication and coor- dination among agencies, while Jordan builds new educational structures. The initiative is co-led by Creative and implemented by two Jordanian-based organizations, EdviseMe and ConsultUS, and Training Resources Group, which is based in Arlington, Virginia. The five-year program will assist the minis- tries that are managing the growing popula- tion of school-aged children, an influx of refu- gees from Syria and the COVID-19 pandemic. These challenges, coupled with internal technical issues, are evident across youth and

Photos submitted by Adebisi Modupe Adetunji

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