The main difficulties facing the education sector in Mauritania include budget allocated to the education sector or restricted funds, the lack of qualified teachers, the poor infrastructure for early childhood education and the lack of adequate teaching materials. teaching materials.

This project aims to ensure equitable, inclusive, gender-sensitive and quality basic education by actively engaging civil society in policy dialogue on education. Through our coalition, which is a Coalition of Mauritanian Organisations for Education (COMEDUC) is a non-profit organisation created on 26 December 2009 in Nouakchott. COMEDUC brings together several civil society organisations active in various fields related to inclusive quality education.

More specifically, the project will seek to achieve three main objectives, namely:

1. The National Coalition for Education (COMEDUC) has strengthened its position as a dynamic and inclusive organisation through the implementation of improved systems aimed at mobilising civil society efforts for political commitment in the field of education. 
2. COMEDUC participates in the implementation and monitoring of inclusive and gender-sensitive education policies in Mauritania by strengthening the synergy of actions with other CSOs.

The project will continue, consolidate, and strengthen the efforts made during the previous project period, implemented between April 2022 – December 2023. In the long term, the project shall contribute to greater equity, inclusiveness, and strengthening of gender inclusion in the education system in Mauritania, in particular through addressing school drop-outs due to child labour and early marriage of girls, teaching national languages, and improving access to public education for children from vulnerable social groups such as young girls, children with disabilities and children from rural areas and poor and peripheral neighbourhoods of large urban areas.

Further, COMEDUC's operational capacities in terms of advocacy techniques for equitable and gender sensitive education will be strengthened. This will enable the coalition to exert more influence and better fulfil its missions of dialogue on public policies in the education sector. The strategy of the project is based on permanent monitoring and continuous evaluation of the implementation of the government's general policy statement on education, the application of the law on compulsory basic education, and the application of the new law on the orientation of the Mauritanian education system.

COMEDUC brings together several civil society organisations active in various fields related to inclusive quality education, covering the whole country with 15 coordinators: 3 in the capital Nouakchott and 12 in the different regions of the country. The coalition is working towards a high-performance education system that meets the development needs of Mauritanian society. This will be achieved by further developing relevant activities and diversifying the partners and members of the coalition, as well as sources of funding.

A previous phase of the project was carried out between April 2022 – December 2023. The current project is part of the EOL extension phase of 2024-2026. Read more about the previous phase of the project here.