Cameroon’s education sector has just received new financial support from the Global Partnership for Education. “The Global Partnership for Education (GPE) has just reaffirmed a pledge of $15 million (almost 9. 27 billion) to our country, along with the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) and the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (Badea), for the second phase of a project we have been implementing in Cameroon for several years, called Paszep (Support Project for Solarisation in Priority Education Zones),” said Prof. Laurent Serge Etoundi Ngoa, Minister of Basic Education (Minedub), as quoted by the Stopblablacam news website. The announcement was made on 10 October in Yaoundé at the opening of the regional peer exchange workshop to draw up a partnership pact between Cameroon, Mauritania and Togo.

This new funding brings the total already received by Cameroon under the second phase of Paszep to 60 million dollars or 36.9 billion CFA francs. In addition, this funding from the Global Partnership for Education is co-financed by the IDB and Badea, which have mobilised $15 million (9.23 billion CFA francs). It is part of the Arab Coordination Group’s Smart Education Financing Initiative (ACG SmartEd). This initiative has mobilised $500 million to support education in low-income countries and was launched by GPE and ACG in December 2021. On May 13, this year, GPE and its partners announced funding totalling $280 million for Cameroon, the Kyrgyz Republic and Uzbekistan.