Ethiopian Center for Development (ECD) has conducted a project launching workshop, officially marking the commencement of the third phase of its collaboration with the Pestalozzi Children’s Foundation (PCF).

Friday, March 13, 2026, the Ethiopian Center for Development has conducted a project launching workshop, officially marking the beginning of the third phase of our collaboration with Pestalozzi Children’s Foundation. The third phase project builds on the results and achievements of two subsequent phases. Our previous three years’ (second phase implementation) focused on improving access to inclusive, equitable and quality primary education and was implemented from July 2022 to December 2025 in 10 woredas of the four sub cities in Addis Ababa (LemiKura, Yeka, Addis Ketema and Kolfe Keranyo). The current phase of the project will focus exclusively on improving academic performance of girls and boys in 16 selected public primary schools in Addis Ababa for the next three years. Our project schools have been expanded from the previous 12 schools to 16 schools, adding four new public schools in the new phase of partnership. In the just concluded second phase, our project has reached over 48,973 students (24,558F) which was a significant improvement on the reach of our first phase of collaboration which addressed 29,312 students (14,894 F). In addition, 84% of the trained teachers have effectively applied the knowledge and skills gained in their classroom practice. The training focused on child-centered approaches, gender-responsive pedagogy, continuous assessment administration, Early grade reading and mathematics assessment and instructional leadership for school management. This was supported with capacity building for parent, teacher student associations to improve community engagement and enhance community resource mobilization. Besides this, the project has also strengthened 60 school clubs and improving extracurricular student engagements and invested in essential school infrastructures aligning with the strategic priority of the Addis Ababa Education Bureau (AAEB) such as two e-learning centers, construction of WASH facility and resource provision. These interventions have contributed to the overall improvement of academic performance as evidence by improvements in promotion rates as well as improvement in school inspection results unveiled by the AAEB (8 schools to level 3 from level 2; the inspection ranks schools into four levels). The third phase of our collaboration will attempt to reach over 67,347 students (33,329F).