Oeuvre Malienne d'Aide à l'Enfance du Sahel

This organizational effectiveness grant would support Oeuvre Malienne d'Aide a l'Enfance du Sahel (OMAES) in carrying out a strategic planning process, including reviewing, prioritizing and developing an implementation plan to act on recommendations of a recent evaluation of a citizen-led, household-based assessment of children's learning and awareness campaign known as Beekunko.

This grant to Oeuvre Malienne d’Aide à l’Enfance du Sahel would continue support for a civil society-led approach to evaluate children’s learning in Mali and communicate the results to parents, policymakers, and civil society. The Organization would continue to strengthen its overall approach for measuring children’s early reading and math skills, train and supervise field workers, and devise new strategies for communicating results encouraging local action on the part of citizens, education officials, and schools.

We recommend a grant to Oeuvre Malienne d’Aide à l’Enfance du Sahel (OMAES) to implement a civil society-led approach to evaluate children’s learning in Mali and communicate the results to parents, policymakers, and civil society throughout the country. Drawing on successful QEDC-supported experiences in India (ASER) and Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania (Uwezo), OMAES will develop sampling and simple tests of reading and math skills, train volunteers, and launch the assessment during the time frame of the grant. The proposed grant is expected to greatly enhance the general population’s understanding of learning levels in Mali and accelerate improvements in the education system.