Challenge:
Africa is the only continent where 70% of the population is under 30. By 2035, over 400 million young people will reach working age. Yet 86% of children in Sub-Saharan Africa lack access to quality education.
Promising education innovations often start as donor-funded pilots. Even when they demonstrate strong results, these interventions rarely have a clear pathway to system-wide adoption. Governments working within resource constraints face competing priorities that make it difficult to scale innovations at pace. As a result, many pilots remain dependent on donor funding; when that funding shifts, interventions end before achieving the scale needed for lasting systems change.
Solution:
Elimu-Soko is an African NGO focused on driving sustainable, government-led education systems change. We match government priorities with proven innovators through a scalable, systems-level approach rooted in Results-Based Investments (RBIs). This requires:
- Deep knowledge of government priorities, processes, and constraints
- A strong understanding of the education innovation ecosystem
- Evidence-based, user-centered solutions with demonstrated impact
We bring decades of experience working alongside African governments, within education systems, and with non-public sector partners. By turning small-scale successes into national, government-owned programs, we build solutions that are both cost-effective and sustainable. Our vision is to see quality education systems across Africa that empower school systems, develop productive educators, and enable thriving students.
Impact:
In Rwanda, our teacher training initiatives have improved foundational learning for 18,000 students, 260 teachers, and 40 school leaders. Grade-level proficiency increased from 19% to 46% in literacy and from 18% to 54% in numeracy. The Government of Rwanda has approved scaling the program nationally.
In Zanzibar, we have reached 20,000 students, 200 teachers, and 40 schools with similar results: literacy proficiency rose from 6% to 34% and numeracy from 5% to 45%. This has demonstrated the viability of our approach as a long-term systems solution.
We are now preparing to expand in Uganda, Kenya, Zambia, Ghana, and Sierra Leone, working with governments and innovators to identify, pilot, and scale evidence-driven, cost-effective interventions that lead to enduring systems change.