The Power of Partnership for Sustainable Education: A Case Study from Haiti

In November 2013, CARE launched an innovative education initiative, “Partners for Learning”, funded by new global education partner, Educate a Child, of Qatar and aimed at identifying, enrolling, and retaining 50,000... [ view full abstract ]

In November 2013, CARE launched an innovative education initiative, “Partners for Learning”, funded by new global education partner, Educate a Child, of Qatar and aimed at identifying, enrolling, and retaining 50,000 out-of-school girls and boys (OOSGB) in Haiti through 2018. The key element of the program design is the use of partnership, solidarity-building, and community mobilization to identify and enroll the children, including securing space in private schools—which comprise more than 88% of all schools in Haiti—with no subsidies in a country where unsustainable subsidies have been relied upon to reach OOSGB historically. One and half years into the project, CARE’s strategy has seen highly successful coordination of a wide-range of actors which include donors, the Haitian Ministry of Education at all levels, multilateral organizations, locally elected authorities, international and local corporations, celebrities, NGOs, private schools, community members and others, resulting in the enrollment of more than 13,000 OOSGB. This article will explore the lesson learned to date on successful partnership building, solidarity approaches to securing free tuition in private schools, and innovative ways of coordinating diverse, traditional and non-traditional education partners and agencies in a complex and unpredictable context. It will examine challenges faced, encountered solutions, and established best practices that illustrate the power of partnership as a viable approach to sustainable resource mobilization, international cooperation, and coordinated action for education development in diverse and complex settings.