Creating a supportive learning environment: enhancing partnership and collaboration on the USAID/READ program in Ethiopia

Session Submission Type: Group Panel

Description of Session

The USAID-funded READ program in Ethiopia is designed to maximize student outcomes in reading by providing the elements of a robust model to support learning. These elements include quality curricula, teacher development, textbooks and other reading materials, evaluation and assessment, and community engagement to provide comprehensive support to learners. However, the success of such initiatives requires close collaboration to create effective synergies among implementers, the donor and host-country government partners. What are the purposes of these synergies? How are they created and managed? What factors contribute to their effectiveness in support of improved learning outcomes? Representatives of USAID, the Government of Ethiopia’s Ministry of Education, and three implementing partners on the USAID-funded Ethiopia READ program discuss these questions, as a case study of partner collaboration. The panel has implications for designing future programs to create supportive, effective literacy learning environments in development contexts of Sub-Saharan Africa and other regions of the world.

Sub Unit

• SIG: Global Literacy

Chair

• Martin McLaughlin, US Agency for International Development (USAID)

Individual Presentations

• The opportunities and challenges of collaborating with government and other partners on the Ethiopia READ program - Stephen Backman, RTI International

• What’s so hard about that?: building collaborative partnerships to improve reading materials provision in Ethiopia - Mark Hamilton, Save the Children

• It’s the small things: collaboration and synergy on the Ethiopia READ program - Jordene Hale, American Institutes for Research

Discussant

• Eshetu Cheru, Ethiopia Ministry of Education