Supporting Education through Civil Society in Egypt

  • Status:
  • Complete
  • Programme:
  • North Africa Technical Assistance Facility
  • Funder:
  • FCDO
  • Years:
  • 2019 - 2020
  • Key Policy Areas:
  • Education
  • Type of Support:
  • Policy Influencing Support

The objective of this project was to support education reform in Egypt by strengthening an Egyptian civil society organisation. In this complex and politically challenging environment, Kivu provided highly sensitive support to a local organisation which provides both school places and teacher training, but wanted to achieve system level impact in a large education system (of more than 20m students).

Working closely with the senior leadership, Kivu helped identify the key organisational challenges and strategic objectives for the organisation. Then working with the whole leadership team and a wider group of employees, Kivu helped develop a strategic and operational plan for the organisation which was embraced by the board. The approach was highly collaborative and completely bespoke, based around a series of workshops which were conducted in both English and Arabic, and the whole project was delivered within six months.

Crucially, Kivu worked in a way that was politically sensitive: working effectively with local organisations in Egypt requires a high degree of care and strong relationships of trust.

Key Impacts:
  • Increased ability of the local organisation to influence policy and promote system-level educational reform in a large, under-performing education system.
  • Successful and safe delivery of support to a civil society organisation in a context where this is very difficult to achieve.