Girls' learning and empowerment: experts at a workshop to plan activities and draw up the 2026 budget

Experts from the Ministries of National Education and New Citizenship (EDU-NC) and Higher and University Education (ESU) have been holding a retreat with the coordination team of the Girls’ Learning and Empowerment Project (PAAF) since Thursday, November 6, 2025, at the Saint Gérard de Kola Retreat Center, a town located approximately 6 km from the city of MBanza Ngungu, on National Highway 1, in the Madimba territory, in the province of Kongo Central. More than fifty people are participating in the workshop to plan activities and draft the 2026 budget for the PAAF. Ms. Alice Mutambayi, Deputy Coordinator of the project organizing the event, kicked off the proceedings.

“...the PAAF Project shared a guidance note on preparations for the development of the 2026 annual budgeted work plan with all stakeholders last September,” announced the PAAF Deputy Coordinator following her welcome remarks to the participants, before adding: “And the workshop we have the privilege of launching today is part of the continuation of the work we began then and have come to complete here at the Kola site in Mbanza Ngungu from November 5 to 9, 2025.”

Ms. Alice Mutambayi emphasized that this activity complies with Note No. 388 regarding budget preparation guidelines, on the basis of which a schedule has been established for the ongoing work. And, according to her, it is on this basis that the PAAF and Ministry of EDU-NC Administration teams worked on preparing the draft of the 2026 budgeted work plan, with a view to the technical and financial objectives assigned to the project for next year.

“However,” she clarified, “while maintaining the objectives assigned to the project’s 2026 work plan and budget as defined in the guidance note, the work plan will need to be adjusted to account for the level of implementation of our activities as of October 2025.”

Indeed, according to the PAAF Deputy Coordinator, for 2025, some scheduled activities will not have begun for various reasons and will need to be rescheduled for 2026 in order to continue delivering the expected outcomes. In her view, this will have the effect—while keeping her team’s ambitions intact—of accelerating the implementation of activities with the hope of achieving the project’s expected objectives by the 2028 deadline. The purpose of the workshop…

“The expected objective of this workshop is to equip the project, with everyone’s participation, with the tools needed to implement its activities in 2026. It is truly at this stage that your contributions are essential.”

It was in these terms that Ms. Alice Mutambayi expressed her expectations regarding the work to be carried out by the experts gathered here, before clarifying that “the 2026 budgeted work plan is scheduled to be presented to the steering committee for approval before submission to the donor by November 30, 2025, at the latest, for authorization.” To this end, she urged the participants in this meeting to actively engage in the work in order to complete what they have been working on together since September 2025 and help the project present a realistic and ambitious budget commensurate with the allocated funding. She also took this opportunity to invite all stakeholders: PAAF, the Administrations of the Ministries of EDU-NC and ESU, to strengthen, throughout this process, team spirit and collaboration, not only in the preparation of documents but also during the implementation of the 2026 Annual Budgeted Work Plan (ABWP) that will follow. It was with these stirring words that the experts set to work, following the sequence of steps outlined in the activity schedule. Following the presentation on the various forms of gender-based violence by Ms. Rose Vive Lobo, the participants focused on a detailed evaluation of the 2025 PTBA, before discussing the 2026, 2027, and 2028 outlooks for the PAAF. Then came the workshop sessions to develop the planning and budgeting document for the project’s activities in 2026, which will take place over five days, through Saturday, November 9, 2025. It should be noted that the Girls’ Learning and Empowerment Project is an initiative of the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, through the Ministry of EDU-NC, with funding from the World Bank. Its objective is to improve safe and equitable access to education, particularly for girls, as well as to improve the quality of education and learning for all. The PAAF has been in effect since July 2023 and is overseen by the General Secretariat of EDU-NC. It is scheduled to conclude in December 2028. To implement its activities, a PTBA is to be developed by the end of the current year and submitted to the World Bank for authorization following approval by the steering committee. Hence the purpose of this workshop, following which the PAAF’s Annual Budgeted Work Plan for 2026 will be available. Jean-Luc MUSHIMPAKO / RTEDUC