Country: Mauritania (AFR)
Project: Transparency Of the Mauritanian Education Budget (TOME)
Organization: Eco-développement
Sector: Education

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Data Sheet

I. PROJECT DEVELOPMENT OBJECTIVES

A. PDO

The Project’s objective is to improve transparency of the basic education budget by monitoring and evaluating its implementation and quality through online and offline social accountability tools.
The project will develop an ICT platform that will be linked to Mauritania’s BOOST database and that will collect information from all relevant stakeholders, including NGO networks, parents associations, and national and local government insitutions. The Mauritania Boost database is an initiative from the World Bank that provides disaggregated budget data of the central government and includes the allocated budget and executed figures by different agencies of the central government. The appeal of the BOOST approach is that it provides user-friendly platforms where all expenditure data can be easily accessed (often in conjunction with nonfinancial indicators) and analyzed.

This project will focus mainly on: i) stablishing a system for participatory monitoring using online and offline systems, ii) supporting a constructive engagement between government and civil society to improve educational outcomes, and iii) building and improving the capacity of civil society to implement social accountability interventions.

B. Project Beneficiaries

The Project’s direct beneficiaries include:

• Pupils from the provinces (“wilaya”) of Nouakchott South and Tagant where the project will be implemented.
• Parents Associations from the provinces of Nouakchott South and Tagant.
• The Basic Education Directorate of the Ministry of National Education that will use the information produced to inform policy design and improve educational outcome.
• The National Federation of Parents’ Association of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania (FENAPERIM) that will receive institutional support from the project.

The Project’s indirect beneficiaries include: a

• All Mauritanian citizens that will benefit from enhanced access to information and improvements in education spending.
• The Ministry of Finance and the Ministry for Economic Affairs and Development that will use the information to improve budget allocation and to identify complementary development policies relevant to improve the educational outcome.
• The Parliament that will use the information produced to strengthen the overtight of educational spending.

II. PROJECT DESCRIPTION

A. Project Components

Component 1: Participatory monitoring of the basic education budget implementation
The objective of this component is to disseminate information on the budget implementation for the primary education sector by using the Boost tool. The main activities of this component include:
(a) Identify focal points in the ministries involved in the implementation of the basic education budget.
(b) Gather information on the budget implementation and the quality of basic education at national level and in the two provinces (“wilayas”) targeted by the project
(c) Disseminate the data on the basic national education budget using the Mauritania Boost tool
(d) Establish an advocacy committee for the budget implementation monitoring

Component 2: Constructive engagement and tools to improve educational services
This component aims to develop channels and tools to foster constructive engagement between the national and local governments, and the CSOs that will be monitoring education services. The main activities of this component include:

(a) Develop partnerships with the National Education Regional Directorate, the National Education Departmental Inspector, and the units responsible of budget implementation in the Ministry of National Education, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry for Economic Affairs and Development.
(b) Build an information platform and develop offline and online dialogue tools (Website and SMS)
(c) Train and support the National Federation of Parents` Associations
(d) Develop a network of NGOs and an advocacy committee (including parliamentarians, journalists and the civil society)
(e) Form a local monitoring and evaluation system for the two provinces (“wilayas”) to gather and circulate information on the quality of the education service.

Component 3: Knowledge and learning
This component aims to distill and disseminate the lessons learned during implementation of the project. The main activities of this component include:

(a) Produce and disseminate knowledge and learning about the project’s approach and experience
(b) Train the NGO network, FENAPERIM, and the advocacy committee on constructive dialogue with government and the Boost tool for participatory budget monitoring
(c) Support the Parents Associations of the two provinces (“wilayas”).

B. Project Financing

The financing instrument elected for this project is a Recipient Executed Trust Fund (RETF) Grant. The source of financing for this Grant is the Global Partnership for Social Accountability (GPSA), housed within the World Bank. As per World Bank Trust Fund guidelines, given that this Trust Fund is smaller than US$5 million this Project is subject to World Bank procedures related to project preparation and supervision of Small RETF Grants. The Project cost is estimated to be US$605,000 to be financed completely by the GPSA grant. Additionally, the World Bank will commit an annual Project supervision budget in the amount of US$20,000 per year.

III. IMPLEMENTATION

A. Implementation Arrangements

Project Implementing Agency: The Project will be led and coordinated by Eco-développement (Ecodev). The organization will be responsible for operational activities, project monitoring and internal evaluations. It will also ensure the quality of the design, training and implementation of the social accountability tools.

Ecodev is a Mauritanian organization created in 1999 to focus on local development and the environment. The organization has been implementing social accountability initiatives since 2008. Some of the project implemented by the organizations include: i) “Jeunes dans la cité”, funded by the French Embassy in Mauritania to strengthen the capacity of the youth to conduct social accountability interventions; and ii) “Promotion du développement local dans la Moughataa de Monguel”, funded by the European Union to strengthen the capacity of the citizens of the Moughataa of Monguel to implement social accountability interventions in the area of education.
Ecodev will work with the National Federation of Parents’ Association of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania (FENAPERIM) to achieve its objectives. This partner has an important role to play in the monitoring of the budget, as well as in sustaining the constructive dialogue, which will lead to the basic education public service improvement. FENAPERIM, has more than 45,000 members grouped in 4,114 parents associations and 13 regional unions.

Flow of Funds: Ecodev will directly draw down on the Designated Account in order to ensure smooth flow of funds for implementation of Project activities. An Indicative Schedule of Advanced Payments and Final Reimbursement will be included in the Disbursement Letter. Requests for withdrawal of Grant funds will be made in accordance with a schedule (milestones) agreed between Ecodev and the World Bank.

B. Results Monitoring and Evaluation

Ecodev and the World Bank will monitor the PDO level indicators, as well as implementation of activities supported by each Project component. The project implementation will be monitored and evaluated following an action-oriented research approach,, including a baseline (a benchmark to define the monitoring indicators and the frequency of the information) and final evaluation. This approach enables the project to improve its strategy and operations through adaptive learning and management as well as drawing lessons for future actions.

To facilitate communication between the project and the national office, various tools will be used:

• Weekly monitoring activities sheets, which describe the planning for every week and the project progress for a weekly coordination meeting in the office
• Quarterly reports to assess the effectiveness of the operations, to adjust the planning going forward, and to understand budget implications

To coordinate the M&E efforts of the project, a monitoring and evaluation staff member will be working full-time with the project and consultants will be hired to develop external evaluations of the project. The GPSA will also support the implementation of this component.

C. Sustainability

The Project will focus on sustainability with the goal of the project’s impact extending beyond the project cycle through i) institutionalizing the monitoring and evaluation chain of the basic education public service and ii) by increasing the capacities of key actors from public sector and civil society to collaborate in this process.