By SADIQ ABUBAKAR, Maiduguri –
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in partnership with the governments of Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe states, has launched a kickoff workshop for the GPE-AF project aimed at enhancing education and learning for children in North East Nigeria.
The UNICEF Acting Chief of Field Office, Borno State, who is also the UNICEF Education Manager, Mr. Gilmar Teddy Zambrana stated this on Wednesday in his opening address at a two day workshop held at Amanda International Hotel Banquet Hall in Maiduguri.
He added that the aim of the workshop is to introduce the new project initiative to partners and provide an avenue for discussion and planning on key priorities , interventions, strategies and roles of various stakeholders and partners in the project cycle
Gilmar said the project will seek to build on efforts and gains recorded through the previous GPE Accelerated Funding of 2020-2023 which was implemented in 24 LGAs selected across the Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states where UNICEF, state governments and partners improved formal and non-formal education access, learning outcomes and continuity of learning for more than 180,000 conflict affected children.
He assured that federal government, UNICEF, donor agencies and other development partners are committed to increasing access to education for over 1. 5 million chicken estimated to be out of school across the BAY states.
The Chief of Field Office announced that the kickoff workshop will unite UNICEF partners from state and federal levels to discuss and plan project implementation across states. Building on consultation meetings with Ministry of Education stakeholders in December, the workshop aims to:
– Introduce the GPE-AF project and its objectives
– Present planned interventions and expected outcomes
– Discuss donor conditionalities
– Provide an overview of the humanitarian context and ongoing nexus efforts in BAY states
– Share lessons learned from previous GPE-AF projects to inform programming
– Develop implementation plans for each state
The workshop featured goodwill messages from the Director of Basic Education, Federal Ministry of Education, Dr. Folake Olatunji David, and presentations from UNICEF Education Specialists, Yetunde Oluwatosin and Abdulrahman Ibrahim, on education priorities, response, achievements, challenges, and lessons learned.
Caroline Nwai provided an overview of the GPE-AF project, while Mohammed Piaz presented on the humanitarian context and ongoing efforts. Technical discussions and planning sessions followed, focusing on outputs, outcomes, impacts, monitoring, and evaluation plans.
The workshop concluded with group work on implementation plans, presentation of state plans, and discussion on roles and coordination between states and FMOE.
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