Project profile — Refugee Education and Development (READ)

• Cameroon (50.00%)
• Niger (50.00%)

• Democratic participation and civil society:
Democratic participation and civil society (15150) (3.00%)
Human rights (15160) (20.00%)
Ending violence against women and girls (15180) (2.00%)
• Other Social Infrastructure And Services: Statistical capacity building (16062) (4.00%)
• Humanitarian aid: Education in Emergencies (72012) (66.00%)
• Unallocated/ Unspecified: Promotion of development awareness (99820) (5.00%)

• Children's issues (principal objective)
• Gender equality (significant objective)
• Participatory development and good governance (significant objective)
• Youth Issues (principal objective)

This project aims to enhance equitable and inclusive learning outcomes for vulnerable refugees, internally displaced people (IDP), returnees and host community children and youth, particularly girls, living in fragile conflict settings in Cameroon and Niger. The project strengthens refugee- and IDP-led organizations to ensure predictable funding, bolster internal capacities and build networks for advocacy for refugee education, poverty reduction and gender equality. Project activities include: (1) conducting participatory institutional capacity assessments with refugee- and IDP-led organizations; (2) delivering training on strategy, decision-making, financial management and resource mobilization; (3) providing small grants to enable gender-transformative organizational development and technical capacity development; and (4) strengthening networks for collective advocacy from refugee- and IDP-led organizations on access to inclusive and quality education. The project expects to reach nearly 40,000 children from refugee and host communities as direct beneficiaries. The project expects to indirectly reach approximately 80,000 beneficiaries, with a focus on supporting girls and other marginalized groups facing intersectional barriers to education.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) improved performance and empowerment of local refugee- and IDP-led organizations (including women’s rights or girl-led organizations) supporting safe, inclusive, and gender-responsive education; (2) increased access to safe, inclusive and gender-responsive education enabled by refugee- and IDP-led organizations for children and youth, particularly girls and adolescent girls; and (3) enhanced collective action of local refugee- and IDP-led organizations working for safe, inclusive and gender-responsive education for refugee, IDP, returnee and host children and youth, especially vulnerable groups.

Results achieved as of March 2025 include: (1) 5,719 learners (3,088 girls) enrolled in targeted formal or non-formal education at the pre-primary, primary, secondary and post-secondary levels; (2) 202 refugee and IDP-led organizations updated their capacity development plans and 197 of them created or updated their resource mobilization plans; (3) 593 members of these organizations trained on safe, inclusive, conflict- and climate-sensitive, gender-transformative education activities and on community mobilization to strengthen support for the education of refugee and IDP children and youth, especially girls and adolescent girls; and (4) 19 long-term, multi-year core grants to support self-organizational development, programming and advocacy provided to refugee- and IDP-led organizations as well as 8 innovative micro-grants to support local initiatives for quality education for girls in protracted crisis situations.

• Proactive disclosure