Minutes from Regional UNGEI Meeting (May 27Th, 2003)

Regional UNGEI Meeting

Minutes (01/2005)

Date: January 25, 2005

Time: 14:00 to 15:40 hrs.

Venue: ESCAP, 6th Fl. A Block

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Present:

Baha’I Int. Community: - Mr. Jayabalan Krishnan,

ECD: - Ms. Angela Chen, Regional Project Director,

ESCAP: -Ms. Koh Miyaoi, Social Affairs Officer, GAD, ESID,

- Ms. Beverly Jones, Social Affairs Officer, Gender-Devl. Section, ESID,

ILO:- Ms. Urmila Sarkar, Child Labour and Education Specialist,

SEAMEO:- Ms. Diana Gomez Mendoza, Information Officer,

- Mr. Benito E. Benoza, Programme Officer (Development),

UNESCO:- Ms. Mita Gupta, Programme Officer/Resource Mobilization Basic Edu. & Gender,

- Jon Frederic Kapp, Assistant Project Manager, AIMS Unit,

- Shirley Miske, Consultant, UNESCO-Bkk,

- Leotes Lugo, Content Manager-EFA Website,

- Mr. Francisco H. Roque, Coordinator, ARSH Project,

UNICEF: -Mr. Cliff Meyers, Regional Advisor – Education,

- Ms. Srisamorn Silawatanawongse – Programme Assistant,

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Mr. Meyers welcomed all the participants and the meeting started with a brief introduction of each member. He further informed the meeting that Ms. Chiharu Kondo, a newly recruited staff in UNICEF EAPRO for Girls’ Education,will be handling much of the UNGEI workload. Chiharu is currently away on an emergency Tsunami Mission in the Maldivesand will return end February.

History of UNGEI Global and Regional efforts:

The United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI) was launched by the Secretary General in April 2000 at the World Education Forum in Dakar. It is a 10 year inter-agency initiative withthe goal is to mount a sustained campaign to improve the quality and availability of girls’ education in support of the gender-related EFA goals and MDGs. A Global Committee comprising key UN agencies and the World Bank was formed in 2000, coordinated by UNICEF as lead agency. UNGEI initially focused on global coordination efforts to get Girls’ Education on the global agenda. In 2004, to revitalize UNGEI and to make stronger links with country level initiatives, a Global Advisory Committee was established, this time comprised not only of UN Agencies, but also bi-lateral agencies and NGOs. DFID and SIDA are the co-coordinators of the UNGEI Global Advisory Committee.

The Regional UNGEI in Bangkok was convened in October 2002 and a mission statement developed. It was clarified that the regional UNGEI looked after East Asian, South East Asian and Pacific countries. While the Regional UNGEI has supported the review of CCA/UNDAF preparation in the Philippines, very little else has been done to support country level efforts.This was partially the outcome of having no budget, but also the lack of time of the members. Rather, more attention has been spent on regional level activities, sharing information and coordinating the activities of partners. In 2004, to become more responsive to countries, a Regional UNGEI Questionnaire was developed and sent to UN and INGO education staff and to MoE EFA and gender focal points in the region. The Questionnaire laid out a series of possible support activities and requested respondents to prioritise and offer additional suggestions. The top 4 suggestions were:

Disseminate examples of good practice from the region.
Provide workshops or sessions on various aspects of Girls' Education at the country level.
Monitor status of girls' education at the country level and prepare advocacy materials.
Elaborate a guide for how to integrate gender and girls’ education issues in SWAPs.

2.Update on On-going related activities:

(a)Gender and Education Network in Asia (GENIA) –A project of UNESCO.

Ms. Gupta informed the meeting of UNESCO’s GENIA projectto promote gender equality in education in terms of access, retention, performance and self-realisation. Advocating on how supporting Girls’ Education contributes to EFA goals, a team of consultants has traveled to each of the 5 participating countries several times (has been working in 5 countries of this region (Mongolia, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand) to work with the gender focal points within MoE.

(b) Department for International Development(DFID) support to UNICEF for UNGEI.

DFID is strongly supporting the UN Girls’ Education Initiative and has provided funds to co-ordinate global, regional and national action to speed up progress on Girls’Education. DFID has supported UNGEI posts in UNICEF regional offices in East Africa, West Africa and South Asia, and has recently allocated resources for UNGEI activities in China.

(c)Gender Scorecard of UNESCO

Ms. Gupta shared data for the Gender Scorecard of UNESCO, which gives marks to countries in the region based on their performance on specific indicators. All the data is from the EFA Global Monitoring Report and the draft document in almost finalized. However, comments from UNGEI members are welcome.

(d)Availability of Thematic Funds for Regional UNGEI

Mr. Meyers informed the meeting of the availability of UNICEF Thematic Funds for the Regional UNGEI. He confirmed that UNICEF EAPRO had received funding for 2005 which can be used to support activities initiated by the regional UNGEI team. This makes the work plan discussions later in the meeting more relevant as follow up action, through the hiring of consultants, travel costs or special workshops can be supported.

3.Work Plan for 2005:

The following discussion reviewed a wide range of potential activities for 2005. This note will list the proposed activities in order that they were discussed and conclude with recommendations for prioritized action.

(a)Inputs to Reports– (MDG), EFA Global Monitoring, GAP Report

The meeting discussed on the reports, MDG 2005, Global Monitoring Report, Regional EFA report. Mr.Kapp briefed a bit on UNESCO’s Global Monitoring Report–the focus on literacy in 2005/06 and on ECD in 2006/07. It is possible that in 2006/07 that Regional EFA Monitoring reports will also be produced, and there may be a role for a Regional UNGEI at that point. In addition, the GAP Report will be prepared by UNICEF HQ in 2005 to review the status of Girls’ Education. While there are few details available on the timeframe and specific process to be followed, UNICEF Regional offices are expected to play a key role in liaising with country offices on accuracy of data and ensuring that the qualitative information and vignettes reflect regional concerns. There is a definite role for the Regional UNGEI to play, although this will be more clearly defined in the coming months. Mr. Meyers said that UNGEI can play a role to address Girls’ Education in each of these reports if we are on top of things and have budget to hire consultants to assist us.

(b)CCA/UNDAF Reviews (Mongolia, PNG)

The meeting informed that the countries to prepare the Common Country Assessment (CCA) and United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) this year will be Mongolia, Thailandand Papua New Guinea. These documents go through a regional review, and in this region, UNICEF coordinates the process. If members are interested, we can have a select team also review these draft documents and provide comments. The turn around time for comments, however, is usually just one week, so those who volunteer must be ready for a quick burst of intensive inputs.

The idea for Country Mapping exercises comes from the Global UNGEI Advisory Committee meeting last year. The details are still a bit fuzzy, but the idea is to help countries carry out an exercise that reviews which organizations are doing what on behalf of Girls’ Education. If this weresomething our Regional UNGEI were interested to support, it would require liaising with the countries first and then hiring a consultant to carry out the actual work.

(d)Country support – VietnamCambodia

The two countries were identified in previous Regional UNGEI meetings as those with the most potential for country level support. The meeting informed that Cambodia have a 5-year Education Sector Plan which is basically a SWAp for the country. Monitoring quality of Education will be an area that we can possibly look at, linking closely with the donor coordination mechanisms currently in place. Reviewing the efforts to improve the transition from primary to secondary is an area wecould also think about. The UNICEF offices in both countries would be interested in carrying out UNGEI related activities, and again, once this is determined, the Regional UNGEI would need to hire a consultant(s) to do the actual work. InCambodia, the gender task force at the MoE needs revitalization, while a review of the annual Education Sector plan from a gender perspective could also be considered. In Vietnam, JICA has prepared a spreadsheet of what different donors are supporting which could be the basis for country mapping, while UNICEF, DFID and World Bank are already in discussion on possible UNGEI related collaboration.

(e)Best Practices

Mr. Meyers informed that UNICEF EAPRO had hired consultants to produce a regional Best Practices in Early Childhood Development document in 2004. This was a major piece of work requiring that consultants be hired to prepare the case studies for each country, followed by editing and a peer review. It took over a year to complete, and while theoutcome was of value, we should not under estimate the amount of work required. For UNGEI, a document of regional best practices could also be prepared, starting with the identification of examples which we would like to highlight from specific countries and ensuring that a wide range of efforts and types of intervention are selected. Consultants would be required. A copy of the ECD Best Practices document will be sent to each of the meeting’s members for their reference.

(f)Advocacy Briefs

Based upon suggestions from UNGEI last year, UNESCO prepared a series of ‘Advocacy Briefs’, which each feature a specific aspect of supporting girls’ education (i.e., boarding facilities, school feeding) and present ideas for policy makers to consider. This could be continued in 2005 with Regional UNGEI members suggesting additional ideas for future Briefs.

(g)Others

A number of additional ideas were suggested. These included:

Link up with SEAMEO’s Quality and Equity in Education (QEE) which coordinates activities linked to QEE themes with its member states. The next meeting inThailand in 2005 may be too soon for collaboration, but future activities can be planned in coordination with the UNGEI team.
Regional Workshop on Girls Education, bringing together key government, NGO and donor partners.

Comments and Conclusions

The most popular activity identified by the regional UNGEI members present for the 2005 work plan was a Best Practices document. This can be linked to preparation Advocacy Briefs that can be produced based on the best practices documented. A regional workshop, at which a draft of the Best Practices document is shared and discussed could also be planned, thereby streamlining three activities into one initiative. The first step, once the Note For the Record is shared, is to have group members start to identify which Best Practices in the countries of the region would be included. Once this is done, we can share this with the countries themselves for feedback, and then start the process of identifying consultants in consultation with countries. In response to a suggestion to brainstorm some best practices here and now, the following ideas were shared:

Prevention of Trafficking Girls through education - Cambodia

Early Warning System (prevent drop out of school) -Malaysia

Girls Education -Yunan

Girls Education/Interactive Radio Education - China

Before the next meeting,members are requested to consider more deeply which practices could be considered models for other countries and to share these ideas so we can firm up a general outline of ideas.

The next meeting will be in early Marchat the same venue. The exact date andtime of the meeting will be confirmed later.

Prepared by:Cliff Meyers