Across Francophone Africa, most children complete primary school without mastering basic reading or math. Yet in many countries, governments still lack regular, high-quality national data on student learning. Without this data, reforms risk being guided by hope rather than evidence. In this context, Francophone countries face unique circumstances compared to the rest of the continent. On the positive side, these countries benefit from participation in the Programme d’Analyse des Systèmes Éducatifs de la CONFEMEN (PASEC), which conducts high-quality learning assessments at the regional level. These assessments provide reliable data that enable cross-country comparisons, track educational trends over time, and contribute effectively to reporting on the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4.1.1: proportion of children with a minimum proficiency level in reading and mathematics.

Participation in international assessments remains notably limited across Africa, including in Francophone countries. To date, only Senegal in 2017 (Programme for International Student Assessment for Development- PISA-D) and Côte d’Ivoire in 2023 (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study TIMSS) have taken part in such international evaluations. But there are reasons to be optimistic. PASEC is expanding from 10 out of 18 countries in 2014 to 17 of the 18 in 2025 and now includes a lower-secondary module. Thirteen Francophone countries have now run at least one early-grade assessment such as EGRA/EGMA and political commitment for nationwide evaluation is rising: Chad (2022), Togo (Feb 2024) and the Republic of Congo (Sept 2024) have each created a permanent government unit to lead national learning assessments.

Despite these positive developments, francophone countries continue to face significant challenges—such as limited funding and technical expertise—that hinder the development of robust national evaluation systems. To better understand the challenges faced by these countries, a recent joint research project by the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) and the African Foundational Learning Data Hub (AFLEARN) at the University of Cape Town interviewed heads of evaluation in Benin, Burkina Faso, and Togo. We also discussed with them the solutions they have put in place and how they would like the donor community to support them.

Challenges Facing Francophone Countries

What’s holding Francophone countries back? These countries face many challenges in creating sustainable and effective national learning assessment systems. While some challenges are shared, others are unique to a country's specific context.

1. Funding Constraints: Francophone countries face varying degrees of reliance on external donor funding for national assessments. Countries such as Benin and Togo depend significantly on external support, creating uncertainty and inconsistent evaluation cycles due to the absence of dedicated government budget lines. Heads of evaluation in Benin and Togo both reported that their government funding is insufficient and that evaluations happen thanks to donor money. In contrast, Burkina Faso has successfully secured government funding for national assessments, demonstrating greater stability and long-term sustainability compared to its counterparts.
2. Capacity Limitations: There is often a notable lack of technical expertise, particularly in psychometric analysis, test development, data collection, and statistical analysis. This skills gap makes countries dependent on external consultants, reducing local ownership and hindering the development of internal expertise.
3. Institutional Instability and Human Resource Constraints: Assessment teams are frequently understaffed, experience high turnover rates, and have unfilled critical positions. This instability results in delays, logistical challenges, and reduced capacity to conduct assessments and disseminate results effectively.
4. Limited Integration into Policy-making: Even when assessments are conducted, findings frequently have a limited impact on educational policies. This disconnect often stems from low interest or limited engagement from senior policymakers, as suggested by several heads of evaluation, but also from a lack of capacity to translate assessment findings into actionable policies. In some cases, assessment units are viewed as technical bodies with limited influence on strategic decisions, and their results are not systematically incorporated into policy processes such as curriculum reform, teacher training, or resource allocation.
5. Security and Accessibility Issues: Certain regions within Francophone countries face significant security challenges, which limit the scope of assessments and complicate data collection processes. Additionally, logistical difficulties in reaching certain schools or communities further complicate comprehensive and inclusive evaluations.

Potential Strategies to Overcome These Challenges

To address these challenges, Francophone countries have adopted several strategic approaches:

1. Enhancing Government Commitment and Funding: Allocating dedicated budget lines for national assessments, as seen in Burkina Faso, ensures sustainability and reduces reliance on external funding.
2. Building Local Technical Capacity: Countries are investing in the capacity of their evaluation teams in key areas such as data analysis, and assessment design. This can involve partnerships with local universities—as exemplified by Burkina Faso's collaboration with national institutions—international training programs, and specialized workshops to build lasting local expertise.
3. Strengthening Institutional Structures: Establishing stable, adequately staffed assessment units within ministries or independent evaluation centers is crucial. Clearly defining roles, improving resource allocation, and providing necessary technical tools and software help stabilize operations. Burkina Faso can be seen as an example with its long-standing, domestically funded evaluation unit. This institutional stability has enabled the country to conduct regular national assessments with limited external support.
4. Improving Data Utilization in Policy-making: Bridging the gap between assessment findings and policy implementation requires integrating assessment results explicitly into national education policy frameworks. Encouraging collaboration and regular communication between assessment teams and policymakers can facilitate informed decision-making. Benin, for example, uses regional workshops and simplified summaries of key assessment results to effectively disseminate findings and increase their impact on educational policies and practices.

What Donors Can Do

Donors can support Francophone African countries in three key ways: funding, technical support and capacity building, and promoting greater demand and ownership of evaluations.

Funding is crucial, given that donors currently fund most evaluations. However, donor funding should empower, not disempower, Ministries of Education by ensuring evaluations remain government-driven rather than donor-driven exercises. As the head of evaluation in Benin emphasized, "Donors need to gradually reduce their financial dominance by not funding 100% of evaluations, so that Ministries of Education take greater ownership and responsibility." For instance, Burkina Faso—where evaluations are fully funded by the Ministry—has managed to conduct national assessments on a regular basis, in contrast to Benin and Togo, which rely heavily on donor funding and experience longer gaps between evaluations. Donor funding must therefore be deliberately designed to reinforce national incentives, ensuring that countries see evaluations as a core government function, not an externally driven project.

Additionally, donors must also work with senior Ministry of Education officials to build genuine demand for assessment. As highlighted by the heads of evaluation in Benin and Togo, donors should actively advocate within ministries to promote the strategic importance of evaluations. When evaluations are fully donor-funded and primarily used for SDG reporting, they risk being perceived as donor-driven exercises with limited relevance to national education priorities. This perception reduces their credibility and weakens institutional interest. To counter this, donors must emphasize the policy value of evaluations—demonstrating how assessment findings can inform decisions about curriculum reform, teacher training, and resource allocation. Moreover, donors should invest not only in the production of assessments but also in helping ministries use the results effectively. This includes supporting activities such as producing user-friendly summaries, organizing dissemination workshops, and facilitating dialogue between assessment teams and policy-makers—so that findings are actively used to improve education systems.

Finally, strengthening technical capacity and providing relevant technical support is vital. While technical support is necessary, donors should ensure it does not disempower local teams by overly promoting complex methodologies such as Item Response Theory (IRT), which, although rigorous, may limit local capacity-building opportunities. Instead of relying solely on traditional approaches such as deploying international consultants, donors should consider a broader range of support mechanisms. These include organizing regular exchange forums between learning assessment institutions across Africa to promote peer learning and sharing of best practices; supporting the transition to open-source software such as R to make data analysis more accessible and sustainable; and establishing a pool of high-level consultants available to provide targeted, demand-driven support on specific technical challenges.

Long-term investments in local capacity are essential, especially given the current shortage of psychometricians and limited capacity for advanced data analysis within evaluation teams. Although PASEC is well-positioned to deliver this training, it must enhance the effectiveness of its capacity-building approach. Ultimately, donors should support the development of local universities and research environments conducive to evaluation. One practical solution would be to establish psychometric modules in statistical schools across Francophone Africa, notably within the Réseau des écoles de Statistique Africaines (RESA) network.

In summary, donors have a key role to play—but their support must be structured in ways that reinforce national leadership, build sustainable expertise, and ensure that learning assessments serve policy and improve learning outcomes.

Conclusion

Strengthening national evaluation systems in Francophone Africa is essential not only for monitoring learning outcomes but also for shaping education policies that respond to local needs. While promising progress is underway—through expanding participation in PASEC, early-grade assessments, and the creation of national evaluation units—significant challenges remain. These include chronic underfunding, limited technical capacity, and insufficient policy uptake of results.

However, as the experiences of Benin, Burkina Faso, and Togo show, countries are actively seeking solutions. From building stronger institutional structures to piloting new approaches for disseminating results, these efforts point the way toward more sustainable and impactful evaluation systems.

To accelerate progress, donors must recalibrate their support—providing funding that encourages national ownership, strengthening long-term technical capacity, and advocating for the meaningful use of assessment data in policy. Ultimately, building strong national evaluation systems is not just a technical exercise; it is a political and institutional investment in better learning outcomes for all children.