eBASE, effective basic services:Centre Region COP

The Government of Cameroon, through the Ministry of Basic Education, has reaffirmed its commitment to improving foundational literacy and numeracy outcomes through the routine, credible and learning-focused use of data and evidence. Yet recent analyses, including the national situational analysis and the evidence gap map, have documented persistent challenges across the education data ecosystem: fragmented data sources, weak feedback loops between data producers and decision-makers, limited trust in data credibility, and insufficient use of evidence to inform policy, planning and classroom practice.

Participants at the inaugural Centre CoP meeting went further. They named the real drivers: fear of sanctions or audits, competition for funding and projects, selective reporting practices, and broken accountability mechanisms. These are not technical problems. They are structural ones, and they cannot be solved without bringing data producers, intermediaries and decision-makers into the same room.

The inaugural meeting in Yaounde did not aim to collect new data or launch isolated projects. It served as a deliberate entry point into long-term system strengthening. Twenty-six stakeholders participated, representing government, civil society, research, local authorities and school practitioners. Together they produced and validated a Regional Learning Agenda and completed an Evidence Rush exercise. The meeting’s core breakthrough was a collective reframing of data: from an instrument of control and compliance to an instrument for learning and improvement.

6 priority domains · Established 2025, Yaounde. See the research agenda Below.