eBASE, effective basic services:North West Region COP

The Northwest Region of Cameroon faces a dual crisis. An ongoing socio-political conflict has severely disrupted schooling, weakened routine data systems and deepened pre-existing gaps in foundational learning outcomes. Yet the problem is not a shortage of data. Across the region, data on foundational learning is being generated every day: by school heads completing administrative returns, by civil society organisations tracking teacher punctuality, by university researchers producing theses, and by local councils filing infrastructure needs assessments. It is the fragmentation, mistrust and lack of coordination that prevent this information from being synthesised into actionable evidence for decision-makers.

It is in response to this challenge that the Unlocking Data Initiative, led by eBASE Africa in partnership with the Regional Delegation of MINEDUB-NW and the United Councils and Cities of Cameroon Northwest, convened the Northwest Regional Community of Practice on Foundational Learning Data in November 2025 in Bamenda. The inaugural workshop brought together 37 high-level stakeholders, achieving near-perfect gender parity, with deliberate inclusion of persons with disabilities and representatives of marginalised communities.

The workshop achieved something that no policy directive had managed before: it moved stakeholders from suspicion to collaboration. Government officials formally agreed to integrate shadow indicators generated by civil society organisations, including teacher absenteeism rates, real-time displacement figures and total studying hours, to fill the blind spots in official statistics caused by the crisis. Eight priority research questions were adopted by consensus, setting the evidence agenda for the 2025 to 2026 cycle.

8 priority research questions · Established November 2025, Bamenda. See the research agenda below