B. Project Cost and Financing (US$ millions)

B. Project Cost and Financing (US$ millions)

53. 
    The project design takes into account lessons learned from many years of World Bank and GPE engagement in the sector.¹⁸ The World Bank, and GPE are two of the few donors that are active in the sector and are seen as taking a strategic leadership role in the policy dialogue, and access and quality focus. The government’s general approach has been to pilot education interventions informed by analytical studies, a model which lends itself well to potential scale up. As such, the project benefits from the piloting and scale up of numerous innovations. These include for example, the pilot CCT support to Koranic centers, and ECD scheme, both of which will be further scaled up; sustained support to early grade reading which has progressively developed from a national strategy for a biliteracy reading program followed by its development in the previous project and now implementation in this project, as well as an established EMIS, and a performance management system for teachers. Despite remaining challenges in quality and access, these have all contributed to development of a better functioning education sector, and gains can be seen in enrollment and learning outcomes. A detailed overview of lessons learned from the READ project, including IEG recommendations, and their influence in the proposed project design by component and sub-component, as well as the linkages to the ESSP are provided in Annex 4.
    

54. 
    Notably, the financing mechanism is shifted away from disbursement linked indicators (DLIs), however the emphasis on results, rather than inputs, is maintained. DLIs were built into the project design of the READ project to incentivize disbursement, but encountered challenges which resulted in a restructuring package in August 2016 that included cancellation of 5 out of 9 DLIs and reallocation of their funds. This was not due to lack of government effort, or failure to meet targets, in fact, throughout the life of the project, the disbursement rate has continuously remained ahead of schedule as has progress toward end targets, but rather due to the severely constrained macroeconomic environment. The DLI funds were designed to be transferred to the Government’s consolidated account in the MoFEA once the MoBSE met the annual DLIs, and indeed for 2 of the 9 DLIs the project funds were transferred to the MoFEA. However, owing to the severely limited fiscal space, the sector did not receive the funds from the central account. In the resource constrained context, the MoFEA were not able to fully execute the budget, meaning that, even in cases where DLIs were fully met, money failed to be transferred from the MoFEA to the MoBSE. As such it was decided that until there is a modicum of financial recovery over the next three to five years, DLIs should not be built into the project design, with the aim to take them up again after 2020 if the economic context has been able to slightly recover, which is a key focus of the new government. Despite not using the DLI mechanism, the ESSP and proposed project continue to emphasize a focus on results, in that the targets are largely focused on learning outcomes and access gains, rather than input/output oriented, and, given that the effective government team remains largely in place, it is expected that disbursement rates will remain satisfactory.