Threshold Program

In July 2005, Burkina signed its $12.9 million MCC threshold agreement, aimed to improve its second lowest performing indicator—girls’ primary school completion.⁵ The BRIGHT program (or Burkinabè Response to Improve Girls’ Chances to Succeed) was a multifaceted approach to promote girls’ primary education in 132 rural villages which included

• constructing ‘girl-friendly’ schools consisting of three classrooms, housing for three teachers, a nursery school (bisongo), a pump and separate latrines for girls and boys;
• community social mobilization campaigns in BRIGHT communities and teacher trainings;
• literacy classes for women and mentoring for girls;
• textbooks and school supplies; and,
• food for school canteens and take home dry rations for girls with a 90 percent attendance rate.

GOBF selected 132 rural communities in the 10 provinces where girls’ school enrollment and completion rates were historically the lowest. USAID implemented the program with key partners: Plan International (lead agency), Catholic Relief Services (CRS), Tin Tua, and the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE). Plan and CRS oversaw school construction. Tin Tua, a well respected Burkinabè NGO, conducted the literacy classes. FAWE led the social mobilization campaigns. GOBF was responsible for providing teachers and textbooks. The schools were turned over to GOBF in October, 2008, signaling the end of the threshold program.

Prior to the MCC program, GOBF had prioritized the education sector in its 10-year education plan for 2002–2011 (PDDEB). Enrollment and literacy results from new schools, improved educational materials and teaching, and increased capacity were yielding results. The BRIGHT program may have accelerated that progress. According to the independent impact evaluation done by Mathematica for the MCC⁶, BRIGHT was a successful, well designed and implemented project which enhanced the PDDEB and had a significant impact on increasing the availability of schools, enrollment rates (rather substantially, by 20 percent), and test scores in math and French. In order to build upon BRIGHT’s efforts, Burkina’s compact includes BRIGHT 2 which will build more classrooms, bisongos, and pumps, and continue social mobilization efforts and literacy classes.

Some major challenges and lessons learned to date follow below:

• Plan for contingencies. Due to the weakening U.S. dollar and a cement shortage in West Africa, construction costs were severely underestimated. This required Plan and CRS to contribute money from their private funds to supplement costs.
• Be real about what can be done in a two-year timeframe. Threshold programs, in their current design, may not be well suited for large construction programs. Two years was a difficult timeframe to complete construction projects in 132 sites, especially due to the cement shortage and difficulties in accessing the sites during the rainy season. Only 10 bisongos were completed and there were problems with locating a water source in some villages. Although BRIGHT 2 (in the compact) will correct these problems, the gap between the two phases is too long. Classrooms are not ready for next year’s 4th grade students and communities are not well informed about BRIGHT 2.
• Gender means including men too. Staying true to a gender-focused program means that participation by and impact on both women and men must be included. Men expressed an interest in literacy classes, especially in French. It is vital to include men, as by culture they remain the head of household and make all key decisions. While investment in women and girls is critical, the reality on the ground is that real social and cultural change will require men’s endorsement.
• Communication with villages needs improvement. The BRIGHT 2 program is in Phase 1 (until December 2009) which focuses on constructing temporary classrooms, maintaining community interest, and preparing for construction. In one BRIGHT community, parents were frustrated that the food rations and the canteen had not yet arrived and they did not know the timeline for BRIGHT 2 construction projects. A USAID field representative will be present in Ouagadougou and the selection of the BRIGHT 2 grantee should both take place in Summer 2009, which should improve communication.⁷

Although the threshold program met most of its goals, the interventions have not yet impacted the MCC girls’ primary school completion eligibility indicator. This, in and of itself, is to be expected considering the primary school cycle in Burkina Faso takes six years, so any BRIGHT results would not show up until FY11 or FY12 at the earliest. That said, the issue is relevant to the MCC’s Threshold Program in general, as the program is currently designed to improve indicator performance, and hence compact eligibility prospects, during the two-year program. Currently, Burkina is still failing its girls’ primary school indicator. Although the indicator did increase from a 24.5 percent completion rate in FY05 to 29.2 percent in FY09, because of the time lags in the data, that change is attributable to the GOBF’s own efforts, not that of the Threshold Program. Sustainability of those rates may be impacted when the take home rations and feeding programs—a huge incentive for parents to send their children to school—is phased out in a few years.

Next Section: Compact

⁵Burkina Faso’s lowest performing indicator on the FY05 scorecard was ’Days to Start a Business’ (now included under the ‘Business Start Up’ indicator). GOBF internally reformed its business environment and was recently named the sixth top reformer in the World Bank’s 2009 Doing Business Report.

⁶An executive summary of Mathematica’s impact evaluation can be found here.

⁷USAID oversaw BRIGHT from Accra, Ghana, with one Burkinabé employee in Ouagadougou.

U.S. Assistance