Background

The Africa Education Initiative (AEI) is a multiyear basic education Presidential Initiative that is providing 550,000 scholarships for African girls, pre-service training to 160,000 and in-service training to 260,000 teachers, providing 4.5 million textbooks and other learning tools, and increasing the role of parents in their children's education by making school systems more transparent and open to reforms. The Ambassadors' Girls' Scholarship Program (AGSP) is one of the three components of the AEI. The AGSP began under AEI's predecessor, the Education for Development and Democracy Initiative (EDDI) and focuses on the girls' scholarships and mentoring aspects of the AEI program. (www.usaid.gov/locations/sub-saharan_africa/initiatives/aei.html)

AGSP now continues under the new initiative with modifications to program focus, management, and administration. The new phase of the AGSP is under the auspices of USAID's Bureau for Africa, Office of Sustainable Development, Education Division (AFR/SD/ED).

AGSP in West Africa/Region 1 is implemented by World Education, Inc. (WEI) and its partner SageFox, a small business located in western Massachusetts. This program, awarded on September 30, 2004, will administer over 100,000 scholarships and provide supporting activities over five years. Under World Education's auspices, AGSP is being implemented in 12 countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo.

The objective of AGSP is to support the goal of the AEI to retain girls in school, focusing on girls who would otherwise have no means of continuing their education. This is accomplished through awarding scholarships and encouraging complementary mentoring programs that inspire and encourage girls in their educational pursuits. Additionally, supporting activities focus on HIV/AIDS mitigation and prevention, and community participation and democracy, with collaboration from in-country consultants and NGO partners.

Since the beginning of the program, stakeholders at every level of the program had advocated for the inclusion of boys in the program. School authorities, parents associations, scholars and implementing partners repeatedly made the case for boys in their communities that could not attend school primarily for economic reason. As a result of this open dialogue, USAID made the decision to include boys in the fourth year of program implementation. Forty of our partner organizations welcomed this opportunity to include boys in the program. The target number was set at 7000 scholarships, and in most cases, the NGOs were able to enroll more boys than their target number. In total, 9,322 boys benefited from an AGSP scholarship in 2007-2008 in eleven countries. NGO partners and communities have taken increased ownership of the program, as they see an increase benefit to their children and because they feel like USAID and World Education listened to their pleas. Their voices were heard.