The USAID-funded EQUIP2/Mali Education Decentralization Program (EDP) helps the Government of Mali realize its vision of a decentralized system that provides quality education for all Malian children. Working within Mali’s education sector program, EDP finances system-level investments to define new roles and responsibilities; formulate, test, and adopt new processes and procedures; and create and use management and information tools to support planning on multiple levels. These goals are implemented through training, practice, and technical assistance to build institutional and individual capacity in national Ministries; key services at the national level; decentralized services; their administrative and/or government counterparts; and at the heart of it all, schools. Ultimately, increased knowledge and confidence will ensure the adoption of new ways of doing business so that the reforms (and reformers) supported by USAID’s programs are embedded and sustained.

The program has two objectives. The first is to improve the capacity of the Ministry of Education (MEALN) to implement decentralization. At the national level, EDP works with the MEALN to improve inter-ministerial coordination among the national-level institutions crucial to the education system. Much of this coordination revolves around the national budget process and the allocation and monitoring of resources. EDP also improves the effectiveness of an increasingly decentralized MEALN by improving intra-ministerial coordination and improving performance of central MEALN services  and decentralized services.

The second objective is to improve coordination among the Centres d’Animation Pédagogique (CAPs), Communes, and schools. Activities to achieve this objective focus on better intra-ministerial management among education departments and sub-national institutions and strengthening their connections with the Communes and schools. Planning for primary education at the Commune level will be better integrated with national-level processes, and better informed by and responsive to the needs of schools and communities. To be successful, plans, information, and decisions must flow up from the school to the national level and resources and management support must flow down from the national level to schools. This is appropriately described as a top-down, bottom-up approach.