The World Bank Girls Empowerment and Learning for All Project (P168699) Project Information Document (PID) Concept Stage | Date Prepared/Updated: 14-Nov-2019 | Report No: PIDC26778 Nov 14, 2019 Page 1 of 17 The World Bank Girls Empowerment and Learning for All Project (P168699) BASIC INFORMATION A. Basic Project Data OPS TABLE Country Project ID Parent Project ID (if any) Project Name Angola P168699 Girls Empowerment and Learning for All Project (P168699) Region Estimated Appraisal Date Estimated Board Date Practice Area (Lead) AFRICA May 04, 2020 Jul 01, 2020 Education Financing Instrument Borrower(s) Implementing Agency Investment Project Financing Ministry of Education Ministry of Education and Development Proposed Development Objective(s) To empower youth and improve learning outcomes. PROJECT FINANCING DATA (US$, Millions) SUMMARY-NewFin1 Total Project Cost 250.00 Total Financing 250.00 of which IBRD/IDA 250.00 Financing Gap 0.00 DETAILS -NewFinEnh1 World Bank Group Financing International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) 250.00 Environmental and Social Risk Classification Concept Review Decision Substantial Track II-The review did authorize the preparation to continue Nov 14, 2019 Page 2 of 17 The World Bank Girls Empowerment and Learning for All Project (P168699) Other Decision (as needed) B. Introduction and Context Country Context 1. Africa’s third largest economy, with a wealth of natural resources, and a recent political transition, Angola has the enabling conditions for an acceleration of growth and poverty reduction. Since the end of Angola’s 27 year long civil war, the Angolan economy has prospered thanks to vast oil reserves, with GDP per capita doubling from US$ 2,000 in 2002 to more than US$ 4,000. However, the benefits of growth have not been broadly shared, as the poverty rate remained somewhat constant over this period (32 percent in 2000 to 28 percent in 2014). However, this translates into an increase in the absolute number of poor people from 4.9 million to 6.7 million given population growth (CPF, 2019). The recently elected Government has taken steps to combat corruption and accelerate inclusive growth, representing an important opportunity for fundamental reforms in private-sector led growth, economic diversification, and embracing a multi-sector approach to building human capital that will shift Angola’s growth trajectory. 2. Capitalizing on the economic transformation opportunity will require several structural shifts. The National Development Plan (Plano de Desenvolvimento Nacional 2018-2022, PDN) calls for greater economic diversification, a greater role for the private sector, with a view to achieving more inclusive growth for greater shared prosperity. This broad-based strategy also calls for a multi-sectoral approach to developing the country’s human capital, such that the country’s vast oil revenues can be transformed into a lasting, self-perpetuating approach to poverty reduction. Economic diversification toward previously neglected parts of the economy, such as agriculture, tourism, and manufacturing, presents an opportunity for reduced macroeconomic volatility due to adverse export and fiscal revenue shocks linked to commodity prices. It also has the potential to create much-needed jobs for youth, likely demanding higher levels of human capital in general and new skills specifically. 3. Angola is a young country, with the potential for reaping a large demographic dividend. More than half of the population is under 15 years old (INE, 2014). The country’s total fertility rate (TFR) is 5.6 (2017), the sixth highest globally. It is expected that by 2030, an additional 30 percent of children will enter primary school. By 2030, more than 50 percent of the population will be in the labor market in search of jobs. The country has a singular opportunity to reap significant productivity gains and eventually a demographic dividend, should these new labor market entrants be properly equipped to contribute to the Angolan economy. 4. The human capital outcomes for Angolans are low, and much lower than expected given the size of the economy. Women face specific disadvantages and constraints. The country’s Human Capital Index score is 0.36, meaning that a child born in Angola today can be expected to be only 36 percent as productive when she enters the labor market as she could have been had she received full health and education. This is below the regional average of 0.40 for Sub-Saharan Africa, and well below the expected level given Angola’s GDP per capita. Most alarming are those elements of the index where even low-income countries outperform Angola: percentage of children not stunted (62 percent in Angola vs 66 percent) and learning outcomes (harmonized score of 326 vs 363), indicative that the country is suffering from a learning crisis. Just half of women (51 percent) over age 15 are literate, as compared to more than 80 percent of men.1 These 1 UNDP, 2017. Nov 14, 2019 Page 3 of 17 The World Bank Girls Empowerment and Learning for All Project (P168699) gender differences are even more stark in rural areas, where only 25 percent of women are literate compared to 63 percent of men and where 6 percent of girls aged 12-18 attend school, as compared to 11 percent of boys (also shockingly low). The resulting labor market outcomes are worse for women, as they are much more likely to be neither working nor enrolled in school, and less likely to be in higher paying jobs in industry or services.2 5. Compounding these challenges is the contraction of the economy and serious fiscal constraints . The sharp drop in oil prices in 2014 caused growth to collapse in 2014, with the economy averaging a contraction of -1.5 percent from 2016 to 2018. This has generated twin deficits in the fiscal and current account, in turn resulting in a doubling of public debt and high inflation. Fiscal deficits in 2016 and 2017 were -4.5 and -6.7 respectively, before rebounding to 2.2 in 2018. Sectoral and Institutional Context 6. The two most binding constraints to developing Angola’s future human capital are the lack of abilities and agency of youth, particularly young women, and the learning poverty that prevents subsequent skills acquisition. Youth empowerment means equipping them with the skills, opportunities, and attitudes to succeed in school, the labor market, and life more generally. Learning poverty is the percentage of 10-year old children that are unable to read. This foundational skill is the gateway to the acquisition of higher-order cognitive and technical skills needed for labor market productivity. Lack of abilities and agency of youth, particularly among girls 7. Unequal outcomes between women and men begin before and during adolescence. By the end of primary school, boys are more likely to have completed their studies (59 percent vs 34 percent) and have transitioned to secondary school (63 percent vs 40 percent) than girls.3 The main barriers that girls face are related to social norms and expectations around gender roles. As a result, 30 percent of girls are married by the age of 18. However, this national average masks sharp inequalities. Among girls ages 15 to 19 with no education, 58 percent are already mothers, compared to 25 percent among those with some secondary education (INE/MICS, 2017). 8. Adolescent childbearing is, in turn, driven by several factors at the household, school, and community level. Angola’s adolescent pregnancy rate, at 151 births per 1,000 women, is the fifth highest worldwide. Contraception use among adolescents is extremely low, at just 14 percent. Contributing factors to these behaviors exist at the household, school, and community level. At the household level, traditional social norms tolerant of child marriage and early pregnancy result in girls becoming mothers at a young age. At the community level, religious leaders and traditional village leaders (“sobas�) often reinforce male dominant cultural practices, perpetuating restrictive roles of girls and women in society, and enabling socially-acceptable practices around child marriage. 9. Factors relating to school environments also work against keeping girls in school. In terms of school-level factors, the unmanaged decentralization has contributed to a pervasive under supply of schools as schools are not built or supplied 2 World Bank, 2017, Jobs Diagnostic Lite 3 Primary completion rate is the number of new entrants (enrollments minus repeaters) in the last grade of primary education, regardless of age, divided by the population at the entrance age for the last grade of primary education. Gross secondary enrollment ratio is the ratio of total enrollment, regardless of age, to the population of the age group that officially corresponds to the level of education shown. Nov 14, 2019 Page 4 of 17 The World Bank Girls Empowerment and Learning for All Project (P168699) based on needs and respond to financial availability. This is particularly felt at the lower secondary level, resulting in insufficient spaces to absorb girls. When spaces are available, schools can often be unsafe (due to risks around GBV, pressures of trading sex for grades) and/or undesirable (due to lack of clean bathrooms, conditions not conducive to healthy menstrual hygiene, etc). In many regions, parents and girls themselves have safety concerns relating to going to and from school as well. A recent study undertaken in the province of Huila calculated average distances to school outside of the provincial capitals as 5 km (for primary schools) and 12 km (for lower secondary schools). These distances are made that much further given the absence of public transport. 10. As a result, more than 2 million4 young Angolans are out of school, requiring pathways to the labor market that offer them a chance to succeed. According to the 2014 census, 22 percent of children 6-17 years old were not in school in 2014. In 2011, the number of children out of school was closer to 1 million. This trend is expected to continue and to be further exacerbated by several factors. First, the size of future cohorts of children entering primary will require a large expansion of spaces. Second, the supply of schools (physical infrastructure, and number of teachers) is diminishing rather than increasing, with official statistics reporting a 20 percent drop in enrollments in primary school between 2016 (5.9 M) and 2018 (4.6 M). Third, there are fewer numbers of teachers with those teachers who left the system (through natural attrition) between 2014 and 2018 not being replaced, resulting in the closing of many schools. If this trend is not reversed, ever larger numbers of youth will be at greater risk of early childbearing, instead of acquiring skills through the education system, reducing the eventual magnitude of Angola’s demographic dividend. Figure 1. Low Grade Survival in Angola, 2018 (Number of students enrolled in each grade) 1000000 900000 800000 700000 600000 500000 400000 300000 200000 100000 0 1st 6th 9th 9th (graduated) Upper Secondary Total enrollments Source: Authors’ calculations, based on SIGE Learning poverty5 4 https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/2-million-children-out-of-school-in-Angola/2558-4472140-eaqlvn/index.html 5 Learning poverty refers to children being unable to read and understand a simple text by age 10. Nov 14, 2019 Page 5 of 17 The World Bank Girls Empowerment and Learning for All Project (P168699) 11. Angola’s HCI is sharply constrained by the country’s education outcomes. Expected years of schooling, at 7.9 is about the same as that of low-income countries. For women, the expected years of schooling is only 7.1 years, as compared to 8.7 years for men. However, the learning adjusted years of school is only 4.1 years when adjusting for the amount that students learn during the time that they are in school. This learning crisis is further underscored by the results from the recent Bank-financed Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) which revealed that only 1 of 3 ten-year-olds can read a sentence. 12. The learning crisis in Angola is largely driven by the following five factors: children arriving at school unprepared to learn, poorly performing teachers, language barriers, a paucity of data on learning, and school environments that aren’t conducive to learning, especially for girls. Finally, for those outside of the system, there are few opportunities for returning to school, or otherwise acquiring foundations skills. Each of these is discussed below. 13. Many Angolan children arrive at school unprepared to learn. The Angolan education system begins in kindergarten (sala de iniciação, 5 year-olds), followed by primary school for grades 1-6 (primario, 6 to 11 year-olds), lower secondary grade 7-9 (primer ciclo de secundario, 12 to 14 year-olds), upper secondary grades 10-12 (segundo ciclo de secundario, 15-17 year-olds). However, before even arriving in the education system, many Angolan children are already at a disadvantage. First, the prevalence of stunting among children is 38 percent, likely causing cognitive delays right at the start. Second, opportunities for engaging in early learning in early childhood centers, or other structures or activities fostering early childhood development such as early stimulation activities, are almost non-existent. Only an estimated 24 percent of 5 year-olds are enrolled in kindergarten.6 Finally, a high prevalence of tape worms lead to nutritional disorders causing stunting, which can impact education outcomes. Yet there is a very low capacity for rolling out and managing de-worming programs. 14. Teachers have low content knowledge, high absenteeism, and low motivation. The Service Delivery Indicator (SDI) survey of 2016 showed that, during unannounced visits, teachers were absent nearly 30 percent of the time. An additional 17 percent of teachers were found to be at school but not in the classroom, resulting in a total of about 36 percent of classrooms without a teacher on any given day. Moreover, even when teachers are present, their mastery of the content of the curriculum that they are supposed to be teaching was found to be extremely low. Whether testing for content in math or language, or for pedagogical knowledge of teaching practices, teachers scored on average less than 20 percent. This reveals the great degree to which teacher policies that work to attract, select, support, and deploy teachers are ineffective 15. Most Angolan children probably do not speak Portuguese as their mother tongue though this is the language used by teachers in school. Though Portuguese is Angola’s only official language, there are many other languages (and dialects thereof) spoken in Angola, of which eight are nationally-recognized. A study by the National Statistics Institute (Instituto Nacional de Estadistica, INE) in 2012 found that 39 percent of Angolans speak Portuguese as their mother tongue. However, the census of 2014 found that 71 percent speak some Portuguese in the home. This still leaves about a third of students entering school speaking little to no Portuguese, one of the key drivers of low levels of reading in Portuguese language. 6 UNICEF, 2019. Nov 14, 2019 Page 6 of 17 The World Bank Girls Empowerment and Learning for All Project (P168699) 16. Little is known about learning levels and related trends due to an absence of student assessments. Unless learning is measured regularly, across subjects and geographic areas, it is difficult to know the extent of the learning crisis (e.g. what proportion of children can’t read?), its distribution (e.g. in all provinces? Just the provinces in the south? All grades?), its curricular dimensions (e.g. are they struggling with geometry? With algebra?), and the associated trends (e.g. is it getting worse?). The EGRAs in 2011 and 2016 that showed that only about 1 of 3 students could read. Similarly, Angola has joined the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Education Quality (SACMEQ), the entity responsible for conducting learning assessments, though has yet to participate in a regional assessment that would allow for comparison between learning outcomes in Angola with those in other countries in Africa. 17. The current school environment is not conducive to learning. The projected demand for schooling at the kindergarten, primary, and lower secondary levels in Angola is massive. Already, many students are relegated to studying under a tree, due to insufficient classrooms; of the country’s 109,000 classrooms, nearly 20,000 of them are in the open air (in Benguela, such classrooms account for 40 percent of the total). Yet the percentage of children 5-18 is expected to increase by 30 percent by 2030. Ensuring that children have spaces in schools for learning requires an unprecedented acceleration in the expansion of the supply of schools, especially at the secondary level. 18. School-level barriers are particularly present for girls. In Angola, as in many African countries, menstruation is a taboo subject and the stigma can keep adolescent girls and women from participating in certain community activities. According to SDI, 60 percent of schools do not have functioning toilets. Without this minimum level of hygiene, many students – and particularly adolescent girls – are reluctant to attend school. Further, school safety is also a concern in many parts of the country. This is further exacerbated by the long distances required to get to and from school, a risk factor which also tends to disproportionately affect girls. 19. Addressing the learning crisis is even more challenging for those that are out of school, requiring second chance opportunities. Even under the most optimistic scenarios for school system expansion, a large number of youth will continue to be outside of the education system for many years to come, requiring opportunities for skills acquisition through accelerated and non-formal programs. This is especially true for children with disabilities. Although the Ministry of Education and Development (Ministerio de Educaco e Desenvolvimento, MED) offers programs to complete primary and/or secondary education through an evening shift, whereby students can complete 2 years of full-time school in 1 year of part-time evening classes (for primary) and 3 years of full-time secondary school in 2 years, coverage is low, and quality uncertain. The secondary program, known as Primer Ciclo Acelerado, is currently only offered in 3 of Angola’s 18 provinces. Institutional Constraints 20. The Angolan education system is managed by the central, provincial, and local governments, with the view of an eventual decentralization to communes. While the national government is responsible for overall policy setting, provinces are responsible for the actual running of primary schools, therefore managing about 80 percent of the education budget. The responsibilities of municipalities differs, depending on whether they are urban (responsible for construction, maintenance, social programs, sports, etc) or rural (school meals, transport, maintenance). Nov 14, 2019 Page 7 of 17 The World Bank Girls Empowerment and Learning for All Project (P168699) 21. Angola’s education sector faces two institutional weaknesses: inadequate financing, and weak capabilities. Education represents just 6.05 percent of the Angolan budget7, well below the 15 percent target pledged in the Government’s Plano de Desenvolvimento Nacional 2018-2022. Of this, an estimated 94 percent of the budget is allocated to recurrent expenses, leaving just 6 percent for investment. Financing at the primary level accounts for 41 percent of this budget, high compared to other countries in the region, underscoring the Ministry’s commitment to prioritizing this level of education. The disparities in the financing across regions is extremely high, with Bengo and Namibe spending nearly 25,000 kwacha per student per year, compared to just 7,000 in Cuanza Sul and Cuando-Cubango (Figure 2). 7 UNICEF, 2019 Nov 14, 2019 Page 8 of 17 The World Bank Girls Empowerment and Learning for All Project (P168699) Figure 2. Geographic Distribution of Education Spending (2018) 80,000,000,000 30,000 70,000,000,000 25,000 60,000,000,000 20,000 50,000,000,000 40,000,000,000 15,000 30,000,000,000 10,000 20,000,000,000 5,000 10,000,000,000 0 0 Total 2019 R Educacao Educacao p/capita Per capita Financing Source: UNICEF, 2019 22. The capabilities of the sector to tackle these challenges is weak. At the central level, the Angolan public sector faces high turnover of staff, due to many directorates being staffed by political appointment. Similarly, Provincial Governors appoint many of the managers in the education system, at both provincial and municipal level. This includes school directors, resulting in an absence of professionalization of the management of the system at all levels. For classrooms, the absence of pedagogical supervision means that teachers do not receive feedback in a timely or meaningful way that objectively diagnoses weaknesses in teaching, not corresponding coaching that might help them improve their performance. 23. The proposed Girls’ Empowerment and Learning for All Project builds on the successes of the current IDA-financed Learning for All Project (P137072), as well as several regional efforts that seek to boost girls’ empowerment. Under the Learning for All Project, significant strengthening of the government’s capacity for administering the education system has occurred, specifically with regards to the training of teachers. This proposed Project would expand those successes to other spheres of education management. Likewise, the SWEDD regional project has had successes promoting adolescent health in six West African countries. This operation incorporates many of the good practices for reducing gender inequalities and achieving a demographic dividend that have been learned under that initiative. Moreover, through a Global Financing Facility (GFF) grant, Angola has developed a strategy for delivering integrated services related to reproductive, maternal, child, and adolescent health + nutrition (RMNCAH+N) through a multi-sectoral approach not only through the health sector, but through the education system as well. Relationship to CPF 24. The proposed Project supports the core objectives of PDN 2018-2022 and, correspondingly, the Bank’s Country Partnership Framework FY20-25 (CPF). As part of its first strategic policy priority, the PDN prioritizes women’s empowerment and gender equality. As part of the second policy priority, the PDN emphasizes the need for improved Nov 14, 2019 Page 9 of 17 The World Bank Girls Empowerment and Learning for All Project (P168699) training and management of teachers, improved learning in primary education, and further development of the secondary system (including intensifying efforts for reaching youth). The CPF Focus Area 3 “Improve Human Capital Through a Multi-Sectoral and Spatial Approach� is intentionally aligned with these strategic priorities under the PDN. These efforts are consistent with the World Bank’s gender strategy (FY16 – FY23) which strives for gender equality in achieving the World Bank’s twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity. The proposed Project identifies, addresses and monitors key gender issues in the education sector, including gaps in enrollment, performance, and completion. The Project is also aligned with the Africa Region’s Human Capital Business Plan. The Project seeks to support each of these outcomes. 25. The Project’s higher-level objectives are twofold: supporting Angola to improve its human capital outcomes and to reap a demographic dividend. Delivering on the empowerment of Angolan youth (young women in particular), and better preparing Angolan youth to enter the labor market through enhanced learning and skills acquisition, will help the country maximize its demographic dividend. Conversely, a demographic transition will result in better investments in education and health services, contributing to continued improvements in human capital outcomes. C. Proposed Development Objective(s) To empower youth and improve learning outcomes. Key Results (From PCN) 26. The Project aims to achieve the following results: Empowerment - [Increased] number of adolescents completing life skills training by gender - [Increased] percentage of girls reporting satisfactory school climate. Learning - [Increased] percentage of 10 year olds that can read. - [Increased] number of classrooms. D. Concept Description A. Concept 27. The Project’s conceptual framework seeks to empower, educate, and employ Angolan youth, in order to maximize the country’s demographic dividend.8 Component 1 aims to empower Angolan adolescents, with a particular focus on girls, by equipping them with skills, promoting greater take-up of health services (e.g. family planning, nutrition, sexual & reproductive health), and connecting those outside the school system to second chance education 8 For more information on the conceptual framework and the Project’s proposed Theory of Change, please see Annex 2. Nov 14, 2019 Page 10 of 17 The World Bank Girls Empowerment and Learning for All Project (P168699) opportunities. Component 2 works to better educate children and adolescents already in the system, by improving teaching and measuring learning. Component 3 would enhance the readiness to learn of Angolans entering the school system by expanding access to kindergarten. It also seeks to keep more girls in school by creating more spaces in secondary and improving the school climate of existing schools. Assuring the transition to secondary education for girls and offering them a better chance at skills acquisition through better learning, would result in future cohorts of labor market entrants that are more productive, and broadly contributing to growth. More importantly, they would be generating better incomes for themselves and their families, starting to have children later, and better able to invest in the health and education of their children, hence sparking a virtuous cycle at the household and national level. 28. Crucial to achieving the Project objective would be the use of a multi-sectoral approach that builds on existing initiatives in other sectors (e.g. health, social protection, governance, water, agriculture) and those supported by partner organizations (e.g. UNICEF). This is most evident with the Health System Performance Strengthening Project (HSPSP) (P160948), where linkages between schools and clinics would result in improved take up of both adolescent health services (e.g. family planning services, supply of contraceptives, etc) and education services (e.g. accelerated learning programs aimed toward youth). Similarly, there are synergies to be established with the Strengthening the National Social Protection System Project (P169779). Specifically, the social protection project supports Centers for Integrated Social Action (Centros de Acção Social Integrada, CASI), tasked with referring families to social services at the municipal level, including for survivors of GBV. The CASIs would also serve as outreach for reaching potential beneficiaries under the ‘empower’ component of this Project. Links with other sectors, such as water, or transport, will be important as MED undertakes the micro-planning exercise to expand education supply. Finally, the Project would establish linkages with other initiatives such as those implemented by UNICEF, where there are opportunities for collaboration. 29. As per the CPF, the Project features a spatial approach to investing in human capital service delivery. During the preparation of the CPF, a mapping of World Bank investments was conducted (Annex 1). The Project proposes to prioritize those municipalities where Bank operations are already active, in order to maximize the above-mentioned complementarities with other sectors. For social protection, the 40 municipalities with the largest populations of poor people have been selected. The ongoing health operations also target specific municipalities (34), which will be taken into account, as does the forthcoming Decentralization for Improved Service Delivery Project (P170123), which will work to strengthen the capacity of 32 municipalities. Finally, the water, transport, and agriculture sectors are also located in specific regions of the country, which will also inform the spatial targeting of this proposed operation. B. Description9 Component 1. Empower Angolan adolescents Subcomponent 1.1: Provide information and adolescent health services 30. This subcomponent would promote school health initiatives that build on existing national experiences to empower adolescents, girls in particular. These activities would prioritize the delivery of adolescent health services through schools and will complement activities already being supported through the health sector. The specific activities could include increasing the demand and use of SRH services through information campaigns, and links to youth-friendly family planning consultations. Outreach activities using community agents would construct targeted messages to reduce 9 For a more detailed description of the proposed Project, please see Annex 3. Nov 14, 2019 Page 11 of 17 The World Bank Girls Empowerment and Learning for All Project (P168699) and prevent childbearing among teenagers. This activity would also engage local leaders within the community to support adolescent girls to stay in school and delay marriage and pregnancy through information, education, and behavior change activities. Subcomponent 1.2: Equip adolescents with skills, including life skills and provide second chances 31. This subcomponent would aim to provide youth outside of the education system with basic and life skills. Activities under this subcomponent would include improving and expanding the current accelerated learning programs known as Youth and Adult Education. These programs target those students that are already behind, often out of the school system altogether. The programs allow students to obtain their primary school leaving certificate over a period of three years (instead of 6), in evening classes, or to complete lower secondary school in two years (instead of three). A strong emphasis would be placed on supporting these individuals to acquire improved life skills, including knowledge on sexual and reproductive health, nutrition information, financial literacy, civics and boosting of self-esteem. For boys, a specific module on positive and alternative masculinity will be added to the program. Activities seeking to boost women’s economic empowerment would also be considered. For instance, those that increase employment prospects for women such as grants for self-employment, or income-generating activities in the informal sector. Intended beneficiaries are young women in urban areas that are neither working nor in school. Initiatives that shift women from low productivity sectors to higher productivity sectors would also be explored. Ultimately, the definition of activities would be defined by planned analytical work relating to the jobs diagnostic, as well as youth employment programming. Subcomponent 1.3 Remove Barriers to Girls’ Education. 32. A host of activities are needed to support adolescent girls staying in school and ensure uninterrupted school attendance by keeping girls healthy. Activities that could be considered under this subcomponent include integrating WASH education in schools, by supporting joint training sessions of municipal-level health technicians, school administrators, teachers, and peer educators to strengthen their skill-set to deliver education and awareness sessions. This would include hygiene and sanitation measures, including proper handwashing and maintenance of sanitation facilities, to ensure schools provide an inviting setting for adolescent girls to remain in schools. In addition, menstrual hygiene management (MHM)10, and the proper infrastructure to dispose sanitary waste, is also critical to reduce absenteeism of adolescent girls. While this component focuses on awareness (including sensitizing boys), it will also finance minor works, equipment, and goods to ensure the proper infrastructure is in place at the school and community- level to dispose of sanitary waste and necessary supplies are on-hand for proper hygiene. Outreach to parent-teacher committees to keep girls in school would also feature, including campaigns to reach parents and engage them in the upkeep of school facilities. This subcomponent would also finance the development and implementation of School- Related Gender-Based Violence (SRGBV) plans. In order to improve the safety in schools, SRGBV plans would be designed and implemented. These plans would draw from a menu of options available for improving school climates specifically for girls, including the travel to and from school. Options could include activities like appointing female guidance counselors, awareness campaigns, support systems for survivors, teacher codes of conducts, signed school pledges, and the like. Finally, activities that aim to reduce the cost of schooling would also be included. In municipalities where schools have confirmed excess capacity for enrolling more students (i.e. spaces for girls), a mechanism would be developed to 10 The definition of MHM, for the purposes of this operation: “Women and adolescent girls use a clean material to absorb or collect menstrual blood, and this material can be changed in privacy as often as necessary for the duration of menstruation. MHM also includes using soap and water for washing the body as required and having access to facilities to dispose of used menstrual management materials.� (WHO-UNICEF 2012). Nov 14, 2019 Page 12 of 17 The World Bank Girls Empowerment and Learning for All Project (P168699) reduce the costs for poorer households to send girls to school. This would be done through either cash transfers, scholarships, or cost-reducing in-kind transfers such as uniforms or bicycles. Component 2. Reduce Angola’s learning poverty Subcomponent 2.1: Promote better teaching 33. This subcomponent would support improvements to existing teacher management policies. Activities include putting in place screening tools for prospective teachers at scale through open competitions (known as “concursos�). For those areas of the country where teacher deployment has proven most problematic, the subcomponent would also help put in place sustainable policies to ensure that these parts of the country are adequately staffed. Other policies that would be considered under this component are those relating to probation (e.g. how to ensure that only those qualified and motivated for a teaching career are allowed to remain in the profession), and evaluation, so as to inform continuous professional development, and give the MED an accurate view of teacher performance across the country. These would culminate in an up to date Human Resource management tool that tracks the qualifications, deployment, career trajectory, and performance of teachers throughout the system. Subcomponent 2.2: Support teachers in the classroom 34. This subcomponent would work to better support teachers in kindergarten and primary education, with the view of improving their performance in the classroom. To achieve these objectives, this component would support improvements of teaching by means of upgrading the teacher professional development program that was developed under the Learning for All Project (Projecto Aprendizagem para Todos, PAT) project. Activities would include peer-to-peer learning opportunities (at the level of Zones of Pedagogical Influence, Zonas de Influência Pedagógica, ZIP), a coaching program, and overhauling the pedagogical supervision. The subcomponent would also support: (i) the introduction of new activities relating to the preparation of teacher guides, accompanied by student guides, tightly focused on reading instruction; and (ii) modernization of Angola’s textbook distribution system, using technology -enabled solutions such as Track & Trace11. Subcomponent 2.3: Measure learning and teaching for improved learning outcomes 35. This subcomponent would put measurement systems in place to estimate the trends at the national, provincial, school, and student level. Activities under this subcomponent would include the development of a National Assessment Strategy, which lays out the vision for what types of assessments would be conducted how often, by whom, and at what grade levels. Typically, these documents contain two types of assessment plans: those designed for informing the education system as to the overall trends in learning at the various level (“summative� assessments), as well as those meant to identify those specific students that are struggling, and to determine which parts of the curriculum are specifically troubling (“formative� assessments). The Project would finance both types of assessments, and – even in the case of the summative assessments – guarantee that the results are shared widely, and at the lowest appropriate level (e.g. school, or municipality). Assessments that would be supported could include international or regional student assessments (e.g. PISA for Development, SACMEQ), national student assessments, provincial assessments, and/or Early Grade Reading Assessments (EGRA). The subcomponent would also measure the quality of teaching through classroom observations, through the application of another round of SDI. As with the previous round, this would allow for estimating teacher absenteeism, time on task, and other basic indicators of service delivery such as the state of the infrastructure 11 Track & Trace is a technology-enabled system that allows schools and parents to track textbook deliveries in real time, using SMS. Nov 14, 2019 Page 13 of 17 The World Bank Girls Empowerment and Learning for All Project (P168699) and the presence of textbooks. New to this round of SDI would be the inclusion of TEACH, a classroom observation tool that allows for assessing the quality of the interaction between teachers and students. Subcomponent 2.4: Boost literacy through the use of African languages 36. Learning to read is easier if it’s a language that you already speak and understand. This subcomponent would finance the production of materials in Angolan languages of African origin. The materials would be complemented by a reading instruction program to be offered to teachers in areas identified as predominantly speaking these languages. The production of these materials would likely make use of the technological solutions now available, using tools like Bloom, that permit schools in rural areas to create their own books in their languages online. Similar to the distribution of textbooks, the distribution of these learning materials will make use of digital mechanisms that render the delivery more efficient and transparent, allowing recipients to track the delivery of the book from the point of shipment to the classroom. Component 3. Create safe school environments conducive to learning Subcomponent 3.1: Refurbish and expand education supply 37. This subcomponent would support the expansion of education supply at nearly all levels of schooling. Working from micro-planning efforts by MED, in conjunction with other actors such as UNICEF, activities under this subcomponent would include new school constructions, expansion, rehabilitation, and refurbishing existing schools, and other interventions that would expand spaces for students. The priority areas would be those classrooms currently functioning in the open air, including kindergartens. Expansion at the secondary level would then be prioritized, working from census data, and starting with those municipalities with the greatest coverage gaps. Activities would be carried out with an important gender lens, especially relating to school sanitation and hygiene (e.g. separate latrines for girls and boys), and with the view of being inclusive spaces for all children. Universal design will be also applied on selected infrastructures to eliminate architectural barriers for disabled students, teachers and any other person with disabilities. School maintenance grants would also be included under this subcomponent. These activities would be carried out with the view of bolstering long-term resilience to the risks posed by climate change. The Project would seek to establish an overall framework for scaling up infrastructure interventions, based on medium-long term school infrastructure plans, using solutions at scale. Working with the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery, this process will start with a rapid diagnostic of needs (to be carried out in January 2020), followed by the establishment of a roadmap for strengthening the resilience of Angola’s current and future schools. This would include building up the school management capacity, through engaging with the local engineering community to increase technical capacity. Subcomponent 3.2: Improve school management 38. This subcomponent would improve the processes and the abilities of managers to improve school-level outcomes. Activities would begin with the professionalization of the recruitment of education staff at the school and municipal levels. These system managers in MED, provinces, and municipalities would then be equipped with managerial skills enabling them to better perform in their daily responsibilities. This would include basic planning and personnel management skills, as well as those specific to the education sector, such as how to monitor the implementation of pedagogical approaches, scheduling, and ways to effectively observe classrooms, with the view of boosting time on task. Activities working directly with a number of autarquias, to build up capabilities and shorten the accountability loop would also be included. There would be important complementarities with the Decentralization for Improved Service Delivery Project (P170123), as both strive to build up the managerial capabilities of municipalities. In particular, the Project would Nov 14, 2019 Page 14 of 17 The World Bank Girls Empowerment and Learning for All Project (P168699) work with the Departamento de Saude, Educacao, e Familia to professionalize their supervisory functions. This could include support in the utilization of the human capital funds allocated to the autarquias. Capacity would also be built up for rolling out deworming at the school-level. Component 4. Project management, monitoring, and evaluations Subcomponent 4.1: Project management 39. This subcomponent would support project implementation by strengthening the management capacity of MED staff as well as provincial and municipal education administrators. This would include improving the selection, evaluation, and preparation of staff, through technical assistance, as well as covering associated operating costs. Specifically, this component would finance: (i) technical assistance for the preparation of the training modules for the teacher training school officers as well as for those at the central, provincial and municipal levels; (ii) consultancy services for supporting capacity building activities; (iii) training materials and cost related to providing the training programs; and (iv) operational costs for project management, monitoring, and training programs. Subcomponent 4.2: Monitor and evaluate the implementation of (innovative) education policies 40. This subcomponent would help inform the development of future education policies through monitoring the implementation and evaluating the impact of interventions. Activities under this subcomponent include: (i) capacity building activities to establish and processes educational data and statistics to incorporate them into planning; (ii) in- service trainings to strengthening the MED capacity on monitoring and evaluation (M&E); and (iii) technical assistance to conduct qualitative studies and rigorous impact evaluation of the innovative projects developed under the project. Legal Operational Policies Triggered? Projects on International Waterways OP 7.50 No Projects in Disputed Areas OP 7.60 No Summary of Screening of Environmental and Social Risks and Impacts . Environmental Risk Rating Moderate The project risk is classified as Moderate. The anticipated environmental risks/impacts are linked to activities to be funded under Component 3, including construction of new/ repurposing of existing classrooms and, sanitary facilities. Potential adverse risks and impacts on human populations and/or the environment are not likely to be significant and are mainly linked to construction phase and may include occupational health and safety (OHS), community health and safety, and pollution due to solid waste, dust, noise, and vibration. During the operation phase, potential environmental risks and impacts will likely be related to solid waste and wastewater management. These risks and impacts are expected to be managed through application of established mitigation measures. Borrower capacity to manage these risks and impacts are a factor in consideration of environmental risks, as it has no experience in preparing and implementing ESF. Social Risk Rating Substantial Nov 14, 2019 Page 15 of 17 The World Bank Girls Empowerment and Learning for All Project (P168699) The project’s social risk is deemed substantial given: i) the Borrower’s weak capacity on the ESF application and its first exposure to some of the project’s specific focus area of investment; ii) the construction investments that are likely to result in labor influx and resettlement issues; and iii) school related gender-based violence (SRGBV). The Project is anticipated to bring extensive economic and social benefits for the individual and society at large as a result of strengthening education outcomes for youth, especially girls, and opportunities for both women and men to acquire temporary employment through the project. Strengthening skills acquisition for youth as a result of this project will have a direct positive impact on their ability to earn more, be more employable in a wider range of jobs, be more empowered and thus, boost shared prosperity. In addition, reaching adolescent girls is critical as decisions made and behaviors established during this period will affect their social and economic life choices and opportunities. The impacts of this project may improve social attitudinal and cultural norms about gender equality and inclusiveness of other vulnerable groups, such as disabled students. In addition, it can engender less crime and induce greater civic participation. The Project will invest in empowering girls, which will most likely reduce teenage pregnancy, engage persons/youth with disabilities, and mitigate against gender-based violence (GBV), including school-related gender- based violence (SRGBV). Nonetheless, there is an institutional contextual risk, given the MEO’s first exposure to the new ESF and its little familiarity in managing E&S issues. This area is quite new for the Government of Angola and could lead to ownership, coordination and implementation challenges. A first screening of the GBV risks has been conducted through the GBV risk screening tool and resulted in “moderate� risks. Given the amount of the construction works, the proximity to school environments, the presence of SRGBV and the existing practice of transactional sex among adolescent girls and young women (AGYW), the GBV risk is more likely to be substantial. Finally, given the project’s investments in new constructions, refurbishing and expansion of classrooms, involuntary resettlement, land acquisition and labor influx issues might result from these interventions. . CONTACT POINT World Bank Peter Anthony Holland, Leandro Oliveira Costa Lead Education Specialist Borrower/Client/Recipient Ministry of Education Implementing Agencies Nov 14, 2019 Page 16 of 17 The World Bank Girls Empowerment and Learning for All Project (P168699) Ministry of Education and Development Manuel Afonso National Institute of Education Research and Development mafonso@hotmail.com FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT The World Bank 1818 H Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20433 Telephone: (202) 473-1000 Web: http://www.worldbank.org/projects APPROVAL Task Team Leader(s): Peter Anthony Holland, Leandro Oliveira Costa Approved By APPROVALTBL Practice Manager/Manager: Country Director: Nov 14, 2019 Page 17 of 17