The Mombasa PBF course group of August 2014

The 39th PBF course finished in Mombasa on the 29th of August 2014 with 28 participants. The largest group came from Kenya (15x), followed by the Nigeria delegation (7x) and the Malawi group (3x). There were single participants from Zambia, Ethiopia and the Netherlands each.

Five participants obtained a distinction for their final exam for which we congratulate them.

Mombasa beach in the early morning

Unfortunately, 5 participants from Sierra Leone and 3 from Nigeria were unable to attend  due to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

Yet, we believe that countries affected by Ebola should also benefit from robust PBF programs in order to manage this epidemic. For instance by applying social marketing through improving household hygiene and sanitation, improving the Ebola and HMIS reporting system and by establishing Ebola isolation centres. In urban areas in particular it is extremely important to improve public-private partnerships to fight the epidemic through PBF contracting mechanisms such as already tested in Douala, Cameroon.

Best debater of the day

There were 3 participants, from the Malawi civil society CSEC, who will start working as contract development and verification (CDV) agency for the education sector. This PBF pilot programme will support 30 schools and 15 pre-schools through performance contracts aimed at first of all improving the quality of teaching and the teacher – pupil ratio. The key to quality school services is to improve the (financial) motivation of teachers. This may require a PBF mechanism to increase the fixed remuneration of teachers but equally a system of variable remuneration based on performance.

Class energiser

The methodology of the course is that of adult learning and the aim for each participant is to return to their respective workplaces with a SMART action plan of what to do during the first week, the next 6 weeks and the next 6 months to advocate and / or implement PBF.