Abuja, Nigeria – The Nigerian government has signed a $100 million grant agreement with the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), an initiative partially funded by the U.S. government through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).  The grant will support Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, and Sokoto states to increase reading and writing skills, include more girls in basic education, and create a robust monitoring and evaluation system for the education sector. 

GPE focuses on increasing and maintaining equitable access to quality education globally.  In Nigeria, GPE’s goals are to strengthen community activism and local governance, expand access to education through community-based education, and increase the number of qualified female teachers in areas with high gender disparities.  GPE will help the Ministry of Education train teachers and increase access to quality primary education for Nigerian children.              

USAID’s Mission Director in Nigeria, Michael T. Harvey, said, “The U.S. government is pleased to be a supporter of GPE, and we are happy to see the agreement with Nigeria finalized.”  He added, “Nigeria has laid out very ambitious goals under its national ‘Education for All’ program, and we believe the GPE agreement will be essential to its success.”

In addition to USAID, the GPE consortium in Nigeria includes the Japanese International Cooperation Agency, U.K. Department for International Development, UNICEF, and the World Bank.  The national partners are state governments, local civil society groups, the Universal Basic Education Commission, and the Federal Ministry of Education.  The Oando Foundation serves as a private sector observer to the partnership.