Technical assistance for the monitoring of the sector policy support programme “Support to basic education – Phase II”

Detailed description of project Back

A sector wide support programme (SWAP) has been chosen to be financed to support the Phase II of the programme “Support to basic education”. The implementation of this programme has been carried out after an evaluation of the seven key areas necessary to start a SWAP, those being : the macro economic framework, sector based policies and the global strategic framework, he program of the medium-term sector-based expenses, the transparency and the management of the public spending, the systems of coordination of the donor agencies, the systems of monitoring the performances and consultation of the clients and the institutional development and capacity building.

The support of the European Union concerns a financial contribution of 20 million euros forecasted in the framework of the second rider of the finance agreement signed on the 9^th December 1998 of which (i) 18.6 million euros for budget support, spread over a period of two years, and (ii) 1.4 million euros for technical assistance, monitoring, evaluation and auditing. The budget support will be made available in two parts, the amount being 8.6 million euros and 10 million euros respectively.

The present contract of services concerns the technical assistance for the monitoring programme “Support to Basic Education – Phase II”.

The global objective of the monitoring mission will be to assist the EC in the technical monitoring of the programme and in its exchanges with the Moroccan government for the implementation of this programme as described in the second rider of the finance agreement.

The monitoring activities include the support to the EC services in the evaluation of certain questions with regard to sector based policies and the implementation of the programme, the respect of the measures and indicators as well as certain conditions included in the finance agreement.

Type of services provided

The technical assistance is provided by a team of three experts :

• An expert in management and organisation of basic education (Team leader);
• An expert in pedagogy, mastering the issues of sociology of education;
• An expert in macro-economics and public finance.

In a general manner and for each mission, the experts will develop :

• An evaluation of the progress of the implementation of the measures forecasted by the programme ;
• A critical analysis of the documents produced by the Moroccan authorities and other regulative measures not accounted for in the programme but susceptible of influencing and having impact on the basic education sector;
• An evaluation of relevant indicators in public finance;
• A regular review of expenses destined to the education sector;
• Monitoring of the actual impact of the programme with regard to the global and specific objectives defined in the second rider of the finance agreement and for each of the major components.