Monitoring and reporting achievements on Education 2030 and the CESA

Beyond data blank in the education data reporting for the monitoring and reporting of countries achievements against CESA and SDG4 targets, Member States in Africa expressed the need to strengthen the analysis and utilization of data to inform the policy dialogue at different levels within the countries and at the supra national level. At the Pan African Conference on Education (PACE 2018), Members States instructed the African Union and UNESCO to work together to produce, on a regular basis, the continental monitoring report for both CESA and SDG4.
After five years of implementation of the two agendas, assessing achievements so far, is critical to ensure that countries learn from their experiences and integrate lessons learnt in their plans.
In order to institutionalize effective and timely monitoring and reporting against CESA and SDG4 targets, a 3-day technical workshop was organized from 17-19 in Nairobi/Kenya, led by UNESCO in collaboration with AUC, UNICEF and UNHCR with the latter two, as key SDG4 co-conveners.
Sixty Senior education officials including education planners, head of EMIS units and head of social statistics from the Central Bureau of Statistics of 27 countries from Central, West and Eastern Africa attended. Participants (75) in total had put together their experiences and expertise to address challenges of CESA and SDG4 implementations, and proposed a plan for countries’ joint reporting of achievements on both agenda for the next 10 years.
Under the leadership of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, a number of monitoring tools were developed that included the development of a national indicators framework in line with the four levels of monitoring the SDGs namely global, thematic, regional and national levels; and a joint reporting guidelines. Such tools should be harmonized to guarantee that a comprehensive continental report is rooted in the national reports.
Participants recognized the instrumental role to institutionalize the regular monitoring and reporting against CESA and SDG4, to ensure that countries are making progress towards the realization of the targets. Participants have formulated a number of recommendations addressed directly to Member States, and UNESCO and AUC as lead agencies for SDG4 and CESA respectively.
It was agreed that AUC and UNESCO should create a Multi-Partner platform to support the implementation of monitoring, evalution and reporting on SDG 4 and CESA.