Our Work

World Education works through a network of thirty-nine NGO partners to implement the AGSP. Through a competitive selection process, World Education established partnerships with NGOs in the first year of program implementation and has made an effort to maintain those collaborations over the life of the project. World Education supervises the work of the NGOs, reporting to USAID on program activities. World Ed also provides technical assistance to the partners, through regional and in-country workshops, site visits, and consistent communication. Finally, World Ed plays a role in information sharing between countries, so that NGOs across the region can learn about successful models and activities from other countries.

Every year, the number of beneficiaries of the AGSP has increased. In Year 1, the AGSP provided 8,935 girls with scholarships and an approximately 1,000 girls with mentoring activities in Mauritania. In addition to Benin, Burkina Faso, The Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo which were targeted in Year 1, in Year 2, the AGSP included Guinea and Mali as well. World Ed encouraged its partners to provide additional scholarships in Year 2, where possible, and most of our NGO partners were able to surpass their projected targets. In Year 2, a total of 28,612 girls received scholarships. In year 3, the AGSP in West Africa was able to increase the number of scholarships to 31,426.

World Education and our implementing partners have been focusing more on mentoring activities and community participation. In most countries, mentoring activities are unfolding as planned and have included collaboration with other US agencies such as Peace Corps. AGSP consultants also hosted in-country training workshops with local NGO partners on mentoring and community participation. Additionally, monitoring and evaluation sub-contractor IETC held a monitors' training workshop in Dakar in December 2006, and undertook monitoring field visits to 10 countries to date.

AGSP scholarships are focused on supporting the retention of girls in school at the primary level; however certain countries have shown the need to support girls at the junior and senior secondary levels. About 94% of the AGSP scholars are primary school students. The remaining 6% are secondary school students. The ultimate goal is to provide access to education and to increase the likelihood of the successful completion of their education.

Scholarships include school fees, textbooks, school supplies, uniforms, shoes and bags, and in certain cases, transportation and/or meals and for handicapped girls, crutches or wheelchairs. The types of scholarships vary from country to country; our FieldLink database indicates that overall, books, school supplies and uniforms constitute a fairly large proportion of scholarships (at 28%, 24% and 20% respectively) whilst approximately 15% goes towards meals/food, 10% towards school fees and 3% towards transportation costs. In countries like The Gambia, Senegal and Guinea, more than 40% of the scholarship funds go towards the purchase of books for the girls. In Liberia, approximately 50% goes towards the payment of school fees and in Sierra Leone, Benin, Ghana and Burkina Faso, more than 25% pays for school meals/food for the girls.

As the program progresses, we are making an attempt to identify the minimum level of incentive or scholarship needed to ensure program efficiency. Our periodic detailed budget analysis identifies costs from each country - actual scholarship package costs per girl as well as associated administrative costs per girl. With this analysis, as well as working with our NGO partners and communities to critically examine items given as scholarships and the processes involved in administering them, we are finding ways to limit costs as the program continues. This means that more scholarships can be given out with the saved resources. In the first year of the program scholarships generally ranged from about $50 to $250 each, with an average of about $100 per scholarship. The current average cost of a scholarship is about $90.