The Burundian education system is evolving in a context that is not conducive to inclusive, equitable and quality education. This is reflected in the fact that the number of children and adolescents outside of school (EADE) has been increasing steadily since 2020 (approximately 38.8% of all 4-19 year olds).

In addition, civil society is less able to contribute to the process of developing and monitoring education policies and there is little collaboration between actors in the Burundian education system.

Faced with this situation, the EFA coalition BAFASHEBIGE, through this project, has set as its main objective to "Strengthen the participation of national civil society in educational planning, policy dialogue and monitoring by 2023" in order to continue the progress made during the two years of Phase I of the EOL Project.

The beneficiaries of this project are Burundian civil society organizations, administrative and educational officials, organizations of vulnerable/marginalized children, and other stakeholders in the Burundian education system.

Various strategies will be initiated in order to achieve the main objective of this project.

• First, there will be data collection to gather and measure information from a variety of sources in order to obtain a complete and accurate picture of Burundian education policies. These data will serve as a basis for advocacy campaigns that will be organized for policy makers in favor of inclusive and quality education. Thus, in order to ensure monitoring and evaluation, advocacy campaigns will be carried out through periodic exchange meetings between the different actors on the status of the implementation of the recommendations resulting from the studies.
• Another planned strategy concerns capacity building for members of civil society and other actors in the Burundian education system in order to equip them sufficiently to be able to contribute effectively to the process of developing and implementing policies based on accountability and transparency. This strategy will be accompanied by exchanges of experience in order to share and disseminate the knowledge acquired.

These strategies will contribute to building an inclusive and dignified education system in Burundi where everyone will act to contribute effectively to educational planning, policy dialogue so that the education sector is effective, relevant and sustainable. The results-based management approach that we will use will allow us to carry out our activities effectively, in order to achieve our objectives.

The first phase of the project was implemented in 2020-2021 with support from Education Out Loud of 289.868 USD.