One week after public education proponents met in Senegal at the Global Partnership for Education Financing conference, organizers have developed immediate follow-up actions for the $2.3 billion in commitments garnered during the high-level meetings.

Many donor countries demonstrated their dedication to increasing access to quality education with their individual pledges to the partnership fund, including the United Arab Emirates — the partnership’s first Arab and Middle Eastern donor — who pledged $100 million. Senegal became the first low-income country to pledge as a donor, with a $2 million commitment.

In the days following the meetings, the GPE Secretariat met to discuss pre-allocation specifications and create a strategic plan that transparently tracks and monitors agreements made by donor countries, private foundations, and developing countries who pushed their national expenditures to reach or surpass international guidelines of 20 percent of a national budget. The finance and risk committee made indicative allocations for $1 billion thus far, a designated amount for a pool of 26 countries not currently enrolled in a GPE grant program — countries including Ethiopia, Pakistan, Ghana, and Yemen. Future allocations for expiring grant programs will be made in May.

Read the full article about GPE's efforts to improve transparency and monitor funding pledges by Christin Roby at Devex International Development.