The World Bank Somalia Education for Human Capital Development Project (P172434) Public Disclosure Authorized For Official Use Only Public Disclosure Authorized Appraisal Environmental and Social Review Summary Appraisal Stage (ESRS Appraisal Stage) Date Prepared/Updated: 03/09/2021 | Report No: ESRSA01335 Public Disclosure Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Mar 09, 2021 Page 1 of 13 The World Bank Somalia Education for Human Capital Development Project (P172434) BASIC INFORMATION A. Basic Project Data Country Region Project ID Parent Project ID (if any) Somalia AFRICA EAST P172434 Project Name Somalia Education for Human Capital Development Project Practice Area (Lead) Financing Instrument Estimated Appraisal Date Estimated Board Date Education Investment Project 3/1/2021 5/17/2021 Financing For Official Use Only Borrower(s) Implementing Agency(ies) Ministry of Finance Ministry of Education, Culture and Higher Education, FMS Ministries of Education Proposed Development Objective Increase access to primary education in underserved areas, with a focus on girls, and improve quality of instruction Public Disclosure Financing (in USD Million) Amount Total Project Cost 43.00 B. Is the project being prepared in a Situation of Urgent Need of Assistance or Capacity Constraints, as per Bank IPF Policy, para. 12? No C. Summary Description of Proposed Project [including overview of Country, Sectoral & Institutional Contexts and Relationship to CPF] The project will have national coverage. Project interventions will focus on: (1) building core government systems to sustainably deliver, measure, and improve education outcomes; (2) increasing the supply of schools with a focus on promoting gender and geographic equity and quality; (3) fostering effective teaching and assessment practices through training, coaching, and technology-based solutions; and (4) ensuring inputs are learning-focused, especially in terms of making the schooling environment and learning materials more learner friendly and aligned with teaching needs. To maximize impact of the project in improving overall access to schooling, the focus will be on a selected number of districts (provisionally, 14 out of 93 districts) that have the lowest participation in education (as measured Mar 09, 2021 Page 2 of 13 The World Bank Somalia Education for Human Capital Development Project (P172434) by gross enrollment rates). About 180 new schools will be established under the project which will receive a full package of interventions. However, all schools in Somalia are expected to benefit from stronger capacity of the system to manage education delivery and from technology-based interventions to improve teacher quality. D. Environmental and Social Overview D.1. Detailed project location(s) and salient physical characteristics relevant to the E&S assessment [geographic, environmental, social] Situated in the Horn of Africa, Somalia is bordered by Ethiopia to the west, Djibouti to the northwest, the Gulf of Aden to the north, the Guardafui Channel and Somali Sea to the east, and Kenya to the southwest. With a total land area of 637,657 km2 and situated between 2°S and 12°N latitudes and 41° and 52°E longitudes, Somalia has the longest coastline on Africa's mainland. The country’s terrain consists mainly of plateaus, plains and highlands. Climatically, hot conditions prevail year-round, with periodic monsoon winds and irregular rainfall. Somalia is a generally dry and arid For Official Use Only country, with poor rainfall that averages only 100 mm in the northeast and between 200 and 300 mm in the central plateaus annually: most of the country receives less than 500 mm of rain. Therefore, the unavailability of water is one of the most pressing problems in the country. The country has only two permanent rivers, the Jubba and the Shabelle, both of which begin in the Ethiopian highlands and flow southwards. About 72 percent of women aged 15-49 years living in rural areas and 59 percent of women from urban areas have never attended formal schooling. The gender gap in school enrolment is wide with girls estimated to account for 43 percent of those enrolled in school in Somalia. Large distances to school which leads to increased risks of gender- based violence create barriers to girls accessing education services. Importantly, over 90 percent of primary school teachers in Somalia are male which plays a role in girls’ enrolment in school. Social norms around early marriage, expectations that girls support households and rearing of younger siblings and greater ‘social value’ in boys accessing education over girls also play a role in lower enrolment rates of girls. The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to Public Disclosure disproportionately impact girls, including by increasing the burden and constraints due to social expectations such as taking on household responsibilities and care-related tasks. In Somalia, the availability of water, gender segregated WASH facilities and sanitary materials for girls has also shown to minimize the risk of girls dropping out of school. Under the project, priority will be given to districts in which children do not attend school because of either an inadequate supply of school places or because they experience social hardships that inhibit their demand for schooling. Districts will be selected based on current education access rates; those with Gross Enrollment Rates (GER) below 10% would be considered eligible, with priority given to districts that engage directly in social safety net support programs, thereby ensuring demand-side support that enables children to attend school. Districts that are not accessible due to security reasons for adequate supervision by the World Bank will be excluded at this stage. The third stage and final selection stage targets the first 14 of the 26 short-listed districts to sign onto a Participation Agreement stipulating that they will comply with minimum education policy conditions, including the mandatory use of the national curriculum, submission of a feasible plan to maintain the schools supported under the project, and a commitment to specified targets for girl’s enrollment. It is anticipated that two districts each from Banadir, Galmudug, Hirshabelle, Jubaland, Puntland, Southwest and possibly Somaliland will be selected. Once districts selection has been confirmed, new schools will be constructed in areas where there are no existing schools in a 30 min radius thus they are expected to be in rural areas only. This assessment will likely be carried out by Mar 09, 2021 Page 3 of 13 The World Bank Somalia Education for Human Capital Development Project (P172434) a consortium of organisations working in the different districts using a participatory methodology. The assessment will screen out areas where there is contested land or where resettlement is needed. Consultations with all residents, users and claimants on the land that they are willing to donate the land for the school will be an important aspect of site selection. Consideration will be made of geographical spread, and inclusivity ensuring that in any particular district all schools are not selected in one clan’s area. The assessment will also explain the objectives and criteria of the project and provide information about stakeholder engagement plans and GRM focal points. The assessment will also help identify the existence and capacity of potential construction companies and their capacity to comply with E&S requirements as well as measures to prevent elite capture by involving CECs and other community oversight mechanisms. D. 2. Borrower’s Institutional Capacity The proposed project will be the first World Bank project the Ministry of Education has designed and implemented as their own Government program, thus E&S capacity is low. For Official Use Only Implementation responsibilities for the proposed project will be both with the federal and state level Ministries of Education as outlined in the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Federal MoECHE and the State Ministries of Education. According to the Provisional Somali Constitution of 2012, the states are mandated to implement education programs and policies. Administrative structures of the MoECHE, having been established only in the last few years, started virtually from scratch, and as a result, capacity within the Ministry remains generally low in relation to staffing, skills and training of personnel. Gender disparities and representation of disadvantaged groups including minority groups are especially prevalent among education ministry personnel and teachers. Further, there is limited infrastructure in place to support the organizational capacity of the MoECHE (offices, vehicles, computers, and logistics). There is also likelihood of limited capacity among contractors to implement the mitigation E&S measures, thus the FMS social specialist will be based in the district where construction is ongoing to provide daya to day support and supervision. Due to inherent system and staffing weaknesses, the MoECHE (like many other ministries) relies on additional support in the form of technical advisors who typically come from the Somali diaspora Public Disclosure community with the aim of supporting state building and recovery processes inside the country. In the last several years, RCRF has invested heavily in establishing key system and strengthening capacities as it related to teacher management, including the development and adoption of key policies on teachers and their payroll