Education For All - Fast Track Initiative Catalytic Fund Bridge Grant

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The 1994 conflict left the Rwanda education system infrastructure devastated and the teacher force decimated. The initial focus of the Government of Rwanda (GoR) in the area of basic education has been on increasing access to primary education. These efforts have been largely successful. Over the last decade, gross and net enrollment rates increased from 88 to 128 percent and 70 to 94 percent, respectively, with the share of girls comprising slightly more than half of the primary school level student population. The Government is now turning its focus on both increasing access to basic education and improving the quality of education. The Education for All (EFA)-Fast Track Initiative (FTI) Catalytic Fund (CF) is a multi-donor trust fund that supports countries worldwide to achieve the millennium development goals for education. The Government of Rwanda received a total of US$70 million from the EFA-FTI CF in 2007 and 2008. The 2007-08 CF Grant was designed within a sector-wide approach and a financing mechanism that transfers the CF grants to a designated account for the financing of the Government's Education Sector Strategic Plan (ESSP). The EFA-FTI CF Grant assigns an important coordinating and monitoring role to the in-country education sector development partner group, which in Rwanda is coordinated by DFID. Over the past two years, the Bank has been the supervising entity of the CF grant. The GoR has expressed interest in continuing to receive CF funding in 2009 and beyond to help fill the financing gap for its Nine Year Basic Education Program, after taking into account available resources from domestic and external sources. In response to a request from the GoR and donor partners, the Bank will remain the supervising entity of the EFA-FTI CF bridge grant for 2009.