The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank has approved a grant of $11.26 million to the Chadian Government in support of the Girl’s Education and Women’s Literacy project. This is the first grant from the Bank which is aimed at targeting women and girls exclusively.

According to the Bank, the project will be financed from its Transition Support Facility and will be run over a five-year period by the Chadian Ministry of National Education and Civic Promotion, in partnership with other stakeholders in the education sector, civil society organizations, and youth organizations. The Chadian government will also commit US$713,000 in non-monetary terms towards the project.

“Through this financing, the African Development Bank is providing support to the Chadian government to reduce inequalities through access to education – especially for girls. This enables the development of job skills and the improvement of women’s productivity potential through literacy, job training and the development of income-generating activities,”— Solomane Koné, the Bank’s Deputy Director for Central Africa.

This initiative is a giant step towards improving the human capital development of the country. In the 2020 World Bank Human Development report, Chad ranked 187 out of 189 countries in the Human Development Index (HDI), with a score of 0.398— third from the bottom ahead of Central African Republic and Niger.

Chad also ranks 160th in gender inequality with a value of 0.710 which is a high inequality index. Of course, Chad’s improvement in its human development as compared to previous years cannot be written off. Thus, between 2000 and 2019, Chad’s HDI value recorded an increase of about 35.8 percent from 0.293 to 0.398

Furthermore, the project is aimed at scaling access to quality secondary education in a safe and healthy school environment for 5,000 girls as well as train 2,200 teachers and administrative officials. It is also expected to provide literacy programs to more than 7,500 women in three regions— N’Djaména, Hadjer Lamis and Ouaddaï regions.

In Chad, more than half of children between the ages of 4 and 18, on average, spend no more than five years in school, with a higher proportion of these children being girls.

Girls are given out for marriage at tender ages whilst there are a lot more of these girls who are victims of teenage pregnancy. 67% of girls are married before the age of 18, and 30% of girls are married before the age of 15. According to World Bank estimates, Chad has a high number of early pregnancies (i.e. 164.5 births per 1000 adolescents aged 15 and 19).

Therefore, this project is streamlined so as to raise awareness among residents in target regions. Awareness would be raised about reducing the incidence of gender inequality, gender-based violence as well as encouraging the importance of girls’ schooling to reduce early marriages and pregnancies.

Also, the Girl’s Education and Women’s Literacy Project aims to refurbish and rebuild schools and institutions in order to reduce the deficit in schooling infrastructure in these regions.

In addition, the project has components to provide schools with safe drinking water, solar power, school clinics, build girl-friendly latrines, as well as establish computer science laboratories.