Annual Report 2024
As countries grapple with global challenges—from economic shocks to climate change and conflict—GPE remains committed to ensuring a quality education for every child.
GPE has made its support to partner countries more efficient so they can make their education systems sustainable. This support helps strengthen financial management, use better data and increase capacity to meet the needs of all learners.
Highlights
Countries lead reforms to deliver education for all children
Countries’ partnership compacts prioritize and map out sustainable education reforms. GPE aligns funding, expertise and partnerships behind these priority reforms to deliver impact at scale.
By end 2024, 71 partner countries had finalized compacts, adopting system-wide approaches to make education more inclusive, equitable and effective.
Read country stories:
- Ghana chose foundational learning as its priority reform, recognizing that early-grade literacy, numeracy and socio-emotional skills provide the building blocks for all other learning.
- Malawi’s priority reform is to deliver “quality foundational learning for all girls and boys” through stronger teacher support, smaller class sizes and revamped curricula.
- Vanuatu chose to focus on improving literacy rates in primary school through better teaching, parental support and innovative resources.
A pre-primary student shows a word card during a group lesson in a class at Maandalizi Michikichini TuTu center in Michikichini, Zanzibar in Tanzania. The TUTU Program, supported by GPE, Sida and USAID, stands for Tucheze Tujifunze ("Let's Play and Learn") and expands access to pre-pimary education for children in remote and underserved areas by setting up community centers and pre-primary classrooms in primary schools.
GPE/Nainkwa (Trans.Lieu)
GPE mobilizes funds to deliver results at scale
In 2024, GPE tripled grant approvals over the previous year and mobilized a record amount of additional resources from philanthropy, the private sector and development banks that would not have been invested in education otherwise.
GPE incentivizes more national financing for education
GPE grants can be leveraged to encourage better education spending overall, which generates greater efficiencies in education budgets and helps ensure funding is reaching the children who need it most.
GPE incentivizes reforms through results-based financing options.
Innovative financing drives innovative partnerships
GPE has pioneered financing options and tools that generate additional, efficient and equitable education financing.
These tools bring in new partners, transform debt into investments in education, and achieve impact that goes far beyond GPE grants.
The private sector and philanthropic foundations are becoming increasingly active supporters of education in partner countries.
Read country stories:
- Ghana’s drive to reform foundational learning is leveraging a $40 million GPE Multiplier grant with another $40 million from a syndicate of philanthropic foundations.
- In Haiti, a $19 million GPE Multiplier grant leveraged $57 million in cofinancing from the World Food Programme, the Inter-American Development Bank and Education Above All.
- In Indonesia, Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade provided $72 million to unlock a $25 million Multiplier grant to improve learning quality and teaching of foundational skills.
- In Lesotho, private sector investors quickly aligned with the country’s partnership compact, bringing in $2.5 million alongside a $2.5 million GPE Multiplier grant.
- In Viet Nam, to improve early education for children from ethnic minorities and children with disabilities, a $2.6 million Multiplier grant leveraged $2.6 million from the Nippon Foundation.
GPE fosters truly inclusive education
Through funding and technical assistance, GPE helps partner countries create truly inclusive education systems, including for girls.
Read country stories:
- In Benin, a $25.7-million grant and $12.8 million from the Girls’ Education Accelerator will improve the acquisition of basic knowledge and skills among all girls and boys aged 3 to 18.
- Chad used a $10 million grant to train teachers in inclusive education strategies.
- Moldova leveraged a $4.7 million GPE Multiplier grant to gain an additional $18 million in cofinancing from other donors to buy devices for children with visual and hearing impairments.
- In Zimbabwe, a $12.4-million grant from the Girls’ Education Accelerator managed by CAMFED is helping 8,300 girls across primary and secondary schools complete 12 years of education.
Supporting education during crises
GPE works with partner countries and humanitarian groups to support both the initial recovery and long-term transformation of education systems.
This collaboration allows students to participate in catch-up classes to fill learning gaps caused by disrupted schooling.
GPE collaborates with ECW to ensure children can continue to learn safely, combining a dual-track humanitarian and education focus.
Read country stories:
- In the Democratic Republic of Congo, ECW and GPE funding are aligned to support the provinces most severely affected by the large influx of refugees from neighboring countries.
- In Pakistan, implementation of the GPE-supported program was severely impacted by floods in 2022. The government redirected some GPE funds for immediate response in Balochistan, restoring clean and safe education facilities for thousands of children.
- South Sudan used $10 million in accelerated funding from GPE to build 22 flood-resilient schools and install early warning systems to prevent flooding and keep schools open during the rainy season.
- In Sudan, GPE funding, managed by UNICEF, helped establish 365 safe learning spaces and reopen 181 schools.
- After the 2023 earthquake in Syria, GPE provided rapid funding through UNICEF and Save the Children for temporary learning spaces, repairs to damaged schools, and psychosocial support to children and teachers. GPE also mobilized an additional $15 million so that learning could resume more widely across the area impacted by the earthquake.
- In Ukraine, GPE partnered with Google, Microsoft, UNICEF and UNESCO to help the government ensure children could continue learning remotely or in temporary schools, and train teachers to provide mental health support to children.
Partnerships at the center of system transformation
At every level across the education sector, GPE’s approach is to identify and mobilize those who can play a part in advancing partner country reforms.
Read country stories:
- In Benin, Education Out Loud supported DEDRAS-ONG and Social Watch Benin to create an online platform to provide real-time information on the general level of satisfaction with public services, specifically education, and to enable policy players to adjust accordingly.
- In Ethiopia, the GPE KIX Africa 19 Hub held a 3-day workshop on teacher policy development with participants from the Ministry of Education, teacher training institutions, teacher unions and the civil service commission.
- Nepal has applied a $20-million system transformation grant to advance its priority reform of enhancing teacher quality. The grant has supported the rollout of a teacher mentoring program across 50 local governments and ensured that the minimum conditions for early childhood education and development centers are established.
Youth leadership
GPE provides a platform for young people to share their personal views, experiences and ambitions for education transformation at the global, regional and national levels.
