Somalia

EDUCATION SECTOR PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION GRANT (ESPIG) Endline Report

Global evidence has shown that the type and quality of education can either fuel marginalization, alienation, poverty and vulnerability of children and young people or strengthen societal resilience. After the fall of the state in 1991 and the outbreak of conflict, the education system in Somalia remains fragmented and underfunded – with only 0.25 percent of Somalia’s GDP invested in the education system. Significant barriers to accessing quality education in Somalia include minimal capacity to provide in-teacher training; insufficient salaries for educators; high student to teacher ratio; low ratio of textbooks to students; inadequate school infrastructure (e.g., gender appropriate WASH facilities or access to electricity); marginalization of pastoralist communities and minority clans; and an inability to appropriately accommodate students with disabilities.
In response the Ministry of Education, Culture and Higher Education (MOECHE) of the Government of Somalia and CARE have implemented the Education Sector Program Implementation Grant (ESPIG) funded by the Global Partnership for Education (GPE). Aligned with the Federal Government of Somalia’s Education Sector Plan 2018-2020 (ESSP), the overall objective of ESPIG is to increase access to quality education for out of school children; enhance the quality of primary education; and improve the capacity of the Ministries of Education (MOEs) at the Federal Member State (FMS) and district level to regulate and better manage the education sector.
This endline evaluation aimed to assess the extent to which the stated objectives and ESPIG components were achieved (or not) during the course of the project. This study also aimed to identify and explore the factors affecting the achievement of the ESPIG outcomes. For instance, it sought to identify factors affecting access to primary education, as well as the quality of teaching. The findings and recommendations aim to inform adaptations to future GPE investments in system strengthening in Somalia as well as the proposed methodology for their implementation. Read More...

Adolescent Girls’ Education in Somalia (AGES) Impact Brief

The Adolescent Girls’ Education in Somalia (AGES) project is an ambitious six-year initiative (2018-2024) funded by FCDO’s Girls’ Education Challenge and USAID, which aims to boost learning outcomes and positive transitions for ultra-marginalized girls living in conflict-affected areas of Somalia. To date, AGES has enabled 90,698 ultra-marginalized girls and female youth to access quality education responsive to their needs. AGES enrolled 67,509 girls in ABE and NFE in 2019-23. Read More...

Strengthening Female Youth Resilience in Somalia Learnings from AGES and SOMGEP-T

A quality, relevant education is core to adaptive capacities for resilience, equipping children and youth with the skills to cope with shocks and adapt to new livelihoods.1 Schools and non-formal learning environments may also contribute to develop transformative capacities for resilience: strengthening social cohesion through peer support networks; equipping students for collective action and participation in decision-making; and shifting gender norms. Education also has the potential to build absorptive capacities for resilience through engaging adolescents and youth in informal savings groups, strengthening preparedness for shocks, and providing safeguarding mechanisms. Developing resilience capacities is relevant for all, but particularly for adolescent girls coming of age in crisis-affected contexts and those living in displacement. Read More...

Learning outcomes, transition, & retention Stories of change from AGES project in Somalia

The Adolescent Girls’ Education in Somalia (AGES) project aims to improve learning outcomes and positive transitions
for 82,975 extremely vulnerable girls and female youth in South Somalia. In 2019-2022, AGES enrolled a total of 62,288
girls in formal primary education (including regular and special needs schools), accelerated basic education (ABE), and non-formal education classes (NFE). Each learning pathway is adapted to girls’ age range and needs, including flexible delivery and content. The project works with Ministries of Education (MOEs) to coach teachers on delivering subject content, adopting inclusive and gender-responsive practices, and providing remedial education where applicable. AGES also trains teachers and Community Education Committees (CECs) to routinely follow up on cases of absenteeism and dropout. Through AGES, girls who are frequently absent or facing temporary school closures due to attacks and natural disasters are provided with remote learning materials and remedial support. As of November 2022, 49% of the students reported receiving remedial support from teachers. Read More...

Building Opportunities for Resilience in the Horn of Africa (BORESHA) III Final Evaluation Report

Building Opportunities for Resilience in the Horn of Africa (BORESHA) III was the third phase of a five-year project funded by the European Union Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF). It was implemented between January and December 2022 with a three-month no-cost extension (NCE) to March 2023 at the time of evaluation. BORESHA's overall objective remained the same throughout the various phases: to promote economic development and greater resilience, particularly among vulnerable groups. The project activities, carried out in the Mandera Triangle (the area where Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia meet), are primarily a continuation and scaling of what was accomplished in BORESHA I and II, and take a community-driven approach to address the shared nature of the risks and opportunities facing vulnerable people and communities. Read More...

Somali Girls Education Promotion Project Transition (SOMGEP-T) Baseline

CARE International launched SOMGEP and, following its successful completion, continued its programming through Somali Girls’ Education Promotion Project – Transition (SOMGEP-T). The project, which began on May 1 2017 and is expected to close on October 31 2021, builds on evidence from SOMGEP and seeks to further address barriers and challenges Somali girls face related to attendance and learning outcomes. At proposal stage, the project was expected to reach a total of 27,146 marginalised girls; calculations based on up to date enrolment data indicate that the project is estimated to reach 27,722 in-school girls across 148 primary schools and 53 secondary schools in Somaliland, Puntland, and Galmudug, as well as 5,140 out-of-school girls in the same locations.
SOMGEP-T aims to bring about sustainable improvements to the learning and transition outcomes of marginalised Somali girls. To address barriers and the causes of marginalisation, the SOMGEP-T Theory of Change (ToC) focuses on four key outputs: (1) Improved access to post-primary options, (2) Supportive school practices and conditions for marginalised girls, (3) Positive shifts on gender and social norms at community and individual girl level, and (4) Enhanced MoEs’ capacity to deliver quality and relevant formal and informal education. Outputs are expected to contribute to the achievement of the project’s four intermediate outcomes of attendance, retention, improved quality of teaching, and life skills development, which will in turn contribute to the long-term goals of improving learning outcomes, boosting transition rates, and ensuring the sustainability of changes brought about by the project.
The SOMGEP-T evaluation uses a mixed-methods, quasi-experimental design, involving a longitudinal panel of girls with a non-randomly assigned comparison group. The baseline sample comprises 76 schools, with 38 intervention schools and 38 comparison schools. The primary findings from the evaluation are summarised below. Read More...

Somali Girls Education Promotion Project – Transition (SOMGEP-T) Midline Round 2

The long-term goal of SOMGEP-T is to bring about sustainable improvements to the learning and transition outcomes of marginalised Somali girls. Marginalised girls who are targeted under SOMGEP-T are expected to exhibit meaningful improvements in learning outcomes (literacy, numeracy, and financial literacy) and transition outcomes (transition rate) as compared to a comparison group; targeted schools, communities and government institutions are expected to demonstrate indications of sustainability. The project targets the underlying causes of marginalization, specifically through influencing stakeholder attitudes and promoting social change at the household, school, community and policy/governance levels.

Three general observations emerge from the aggregate learning analysis. The first is the program’s apparent impact on financial literacy. When using the pure longitudinal panel of all the individuals who overlap between Baseline and Midline Round 2, the impact is a substantive 8.4 percentage in favour of intervention schools. Secondly, increases in numeracy outcomes are systematically higher among intervention girls. The panel consisting of girls who have been enrolled since baseline has improved their results on average by 4.6 points more than the comparison group since the baseline. This divergence has almost entirely occurred between the two midline evaluation rounds, likely because impacts of the program in this regard are not immediate. Thirdly, despite indications of program impact in financial literacy and numeracy, literacy outcomes in comparison schools have often shown more marked improvement than intervention schools since the baseline. Read More...

Somali Girls Education Promotion Program Transition (SOMGEP-T) Midline

Despite ongoing efforts, learning outcomes in Somalia remain among the lowest in the region, particularly for girls. Boys and girls contend with different gender and social norms that tend to undermine their ability to stay in school, study and advance from grade to grade. Girls in Somalia are living in an environment undergoing deep transitions in social and gender norms, where traditional norms expecting women to primarily care for children in the home and assume responsibility for household tasks, and placing little value or emphasis on education for women coexist with new roles for women as entrepreneurs, heads of household and main breadwinners at home, thus increasing demand on girls’ education. Since the time of the baseline, rural-rural migration has increased, predominantly as a result of economic hardship that has persisted among households that have been most heavily affected by drought. At the level of national government, MoE personnel tend to change frequently, leading to lack of continuity over time, but there is also increased funding for educational initiatives. It is in this context that CARE International launched SOMGEP and, following its successful completion, continued its programming through Somali Girls’ Education Promotion Project – Transition (SOMGEP-T). The project, which began on May 1 2017 and is expected to close on October 31 2021, builds on evidence from SOMGEP and seeks to further address barriers and challenges Somali girls face related to attendance and learning outcomes. At proposal stage, the project was expected to reach a total of 27,146 marginalised girls; calculations based on up to date enrolment data indicate that the project is estimated to reach 27,722 in-school girls across 148 primary schools and 53 secondary schools in 22 target districts in Somaliland, Puntland, and Galmudug, as well as 5,140 out-of-school girls in the same locations.
SOMGEP-T aims to bring about sustainable improvements to the learning and transition outcomes of marginalised Somali girls. To address barriers and the causes of marginalisation, the SOMGEP-T Theory of Change (ToC) focuses on four key outputs: (1) Improved access to post-primary options, (2) Supportive school practices and conditions for marginalised girls, (3) Positive shifts on gender and social norms at community and individual girl level, and (4) Enhanced MoEs’ capacity to deliver quality and relevant formal and informal education. Outputs are expected to contribute to the achievement of the project’s four intermediate outcomes of attendance, retention, improved quality of teaching, and life skills development, which will in turn contribute to the long-term goals of improving learning outcomes, boosting transition rates, and ensuring the sustainability of changes brought about by the project.
The SOMGEP-T evaluation uses a mixed-methods, quasi-experimental design, involving a longitudinal panel of girls with a non-randomly assigned comparison group. The present study describes the results after four months of exposure to the intervention for in-school girls and presents the baseline findings for girls attending an alternative learning program (ALP). The midline sample comprises 63 schools, with 32 intervention schools and 31 comparison schools, plus 32 ALP sites (17 shared with the midline sample, 15 unique to the ALP sample). The primary findings from the evaluation are summarised below. Read More...

Somali Girls Education Promotion Project Transition (SOMGEP-T) Endline Evaluation

The Somali Girls’ Education Promotion Project – Transition (SOMGEP-T), funded by UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) and USAID, was implemented from 2017-2022 in rural and remote areas of Somaliland, Puntland, and Galmudug, reaching an estimated 20,000 girls and 10,000 boys directly and another 20,000 students through indirect benefits. The implementation of SOMGEP-T followed on the successes of SOMGEP (2013-17, funded by FCDO), with a particular focus on enhancing learning outcomes and transition rates for marginalised adolescent girls. SOMGEP-T was implemented by a consortium formed by CARE International, ADRA, local women’s rights network NAGAAD, and local non-governmental organisations HAVOYOCO (a youth-led committee) and TASS. The project’s activities were conducted in close collaboration with state- and national-level Ministries of Education, responding to priority areas identified in state and Federal-level sector development plans.
SOMGEP-T used a mixed-methods, quasi-experimental design for impact measurement. The endline evaluation sample included 69 primary schools, split between 37 intervention and 32 comparison schools. Additionally, a pre-post evaluation design was used to assess progress on accelerated education programming. Data collection took place in an additional 32 Alternative Learning Programme (ALP) centres and 35 Accelerated Basic Education (ABE) centres, which are located in the same communities as SOMGEP-T intervention schools. In total, the endline sample included 1,802 girls and their households, 965 of whom were re-contacted from the baseline and interviewed successfully. The endline data collection took place in December 2021.
Learning
A few key findings emerged from the learning analysis. Firstly, although improvements were observed in numeracy, Somali literacy, English literacy, and financial literacy amongst girls in intervention schools, these improvements were also simultaneously observed in girls in comparison schools. Secondly, learning improvements occurred largely within the first two years of the programme, prior to the ML2 evaluation – a finding which can largely be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting long-running school closures that occurred between the ML2 and endline evaluations.
At the endline, it became evident that SOMGEP-T had a much larger impact on learning among a few specific groups of ultra-marginalised girls, especially those marginalised along multiple overlapping axes, such as girls from relatively poor or pastoralist households who were out-of-school at the baseline, girls with physical disabilities, and the lowest-performing students at the baseline. For instance, girls from pastoralist households who were out-of-school at baseline gained an average of 10.8 percentage points in Somali literacy, over and above the comparison group. A similar, but less stark, pattern was observed in average numeracy scores (3.9 percentage points over and above the comparison group). In both cases gains among this subgroup were larger than among other out-of-school girls or pastoralist girls who were already in school when the programme started. Read More...

SOMALI RELIEF AND RECOVERY PROGRAM-SRRP

Due to repeated climate shocks, continued conflict, and protracted displacement mean that Somalia remains one of the most prolonged humanitarian crises in the world. Over 4.2 million people, including 2.5 million children are estimated to need humanitarian assistance and protection in 2019. Significant displacement and destitution driven by the 2016/17 drought and protracted conflict have left more than 1.5 million people across Somalia facing acute food insecurity through June 2019 with 903,100 children under the age of five are likely to be malnourished in 2019 including 138,200 who are likely to be severely malnourished. Women and children like in many other instances of conflicts represented the majority of the 2.6 million people displaced across the country.

The Somalia Relief and Recovery Project-SRRP's main goal was to address the most urgent and basic needs of drought-affected communities in Bari, Galgaduud, Lower Juba, Mudug, Sanaag, Hiraan, and Sool regions that have been severely affected by the recurrent drought crisis. In particular, the project aimed to improve access to safe water and hygiene in drought-affected communities, provide temporary employment opportunities, deliver treatment services for acutely malnourished children and pregnant and lactating women, provide basic health services, and protection services. The project also aimed at improving coordination through the Somalia NGO consortium to a concert and coordinate efforts to adequately address the recurrent humanitarian challenges in Somalia. Read More...

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