[{"bbox": [145, 151, 1084, 233], "category": "Text", "text": "governance. Boards of Governors and Parents-Teachers Associations (PTA) can become functional and make an important contribution to school planning and management if there is more focus on ensuring the transparency of school leadership in school budgeting and use of resources."}, {"bbox": [145, 243, 1084, 431], "category": "Text", "text": "**Need of diversifying the expansion of secondary education** - Traditional support to increase access through infrastructure construction / rehabilitation has helped improved school access/enrolment, made improvements to the learning environment, and incentivise teachers to work and remain in rural schools. However, it has come with significant challenges related to capacity constraints in the MoE system for planning, management and monitoring of school infrastructure works. In addition, school infrastructure development is currently strongly reliant on external support. While addressing these constraints, it is essential to expand the access in a diversified way."}, {"bbox": [145, 441, 1084, 629], "category": "Text", "text": "**Gender mainstreaming** - Girls in Malawi are confronted to a range of complex factors contributing to drop out, including negative socio-cultural norms, encouraging girls to marry early, and resistance to allowing Sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights information and services for girls. That need to be addressed through specific complementary/additional interventions / approaches (e.g. sensitisation of communities) that will have to be considered at the different levels. The lack of female teachers in CDSS should also be considered as it can present a challenge to mainstreaming / addressing gender barriers in schools."}, {"bbox": [145, 641, 448, 673], "category": "Section-header", "text": "### 3.5. The Intervention Logic"}, {"bbox": [145, 685, 1084, 848], "category": "Text", "text": "The underlying intervention logic for this Action is that the Government is committed to reforms that aim for medium-term economic and societal recovery targeting long-term growth and citizens' welfare. These include the stimulation of Malawi's economy, the consolidation of progress in democratic institutions and processes and the increased investment in the country's human development. However, carrying out these reforms in a context of limited fiscal space is a difficult task and the active support of multilateral and bilateral development partners remains necessary."}, {"bbox": [145, 857, 1084, 1072], "category": "Text", "text": "In this context, the EU opts for resuming budget support operations in support of the reforms, coupled with tailored complementary measures. This will allow for increased fiscal space and higher ownership of the Government of the activities and the results of the programme. Moreover, the option of a State and Resilience Building Contract (SRBC) is adequate for Malawi's recovery from a multi-faceted crisis (balance of payment and debt crises, food crisis, frequent climate related shocks), supporting the country to advance policies through a human-centric and holistic approach and provide political leverage to encourage institutions to continue carrying out solid reforms with lasting positive effects on the economy and the society."}, {"bbox": [145, 1082, 1084, 1350], "category": "Text", "text": "In this regard, the Action's objectives aim to address key inefficiencies in the education sector, ensuring better use of public funds for improved service delivery at school and local levels. While the primary focus is on secondary education, cross-sector challenges impacting primary education and opportunities for young people to transition to, remain in and complete secondary school, and so access higher levels of education and contribute productively to the labour market will also be addressed with a special focus on vulnerable categories. With high levels of population growth, and many challenges facing expanded provision of basic and secondary education alongside quality improvements, there is a need to ensure sufficient fiscal space for implementation of priority reforms under NESIP. Budget Support represents therefore an important tool in support of dialogue with GoM on sector financing and is expected to help in maintaining sector spending, seeking efficiency gains, and, when possible, increasing fiscal space."}, {"bbox": [145, 1359, 1084, 1574], "category": "Text", "text": "Under SO.1, the Action will enhance sector specific PFM reforms by improving secondary education financing, ensuring nationwide implementation of MoE/GoM reforms to the funding formula, and addressing specific cost barriers in disadvantaged schools. It also aims to strengthen school management, ensuring timely fund disbursement and transparent fund use. Alongside this, the Action will also support the MoE in implementing its secondary education expansion strategy. In particular, expectation is for Budget Support to support the inclusion of initiatives within MoE's budget to expand secondary provision, in the most equitable and cost effective ways, including potentially through more use of double shifts, addressing the quality and management of OSS and supporting the reform of"}, {"bbox": [966, 1681, 1082, 1707], "category": "Page-footer", "text": "Page 16 of 29"}]