MCA award was received by Akuja de Garang, the Technical Director for Girls’ Education South Sudan|Courtesy

The Girls’ Education South Sudan has been awarded the International Project of the Year at the 2024 Management Consultancies Association awards in London.

The Management Consultancies Association is the voice of the consulting industry and represents the UK’s leading management consulting firms.

The award was received by Akuja de Garang, the Technical Director for Girls’ Education South Sudan.

According to GESS, the recognition is a testament to contributions it made in the over 10 years of its education support implementation across South Sudan, and the continued donor fundings.

Over the years, GES supported the education of girls and those in the margins of society through different interventions.

Some of the program’s successes include; behavior change communications to raise the awareness on the importance of girls’ education.

With GESS’s cash transfers, more than one million girls have benefited from the initiative as students afforded items such as exercise books, uniforms or even soap so they feel comfortable in lessons.

Through GESS support, girls’ participation in education increased from 38% of children in 2011 to 49% in 2023, the number of girls enrolled in school increased from 540,000 in 2011 to over 1.2M in 2021, in 2023, 425,000 schoolgirls were validated to receive a cash transfer.

Its grants to schools to cover operational costs and decrease registration fees, reducing the financial burden for parents, and mainstreaming disability inclusion across the programme with a focus on establishing accurate data for children with disabilities to inform programming for the whole education sector.

Under the initiative, government officials from the national level to the local government levels were trained on management of education budgets and accountability.

The Girls Education South Sudan program is a multi-donor partnership between the governments of the UK, Canada, EU, United States, Sweden and Norway.

Over two million people have listened to a special radio programme, including on Eye Radio across South Sudan and there has also been a variety of community outreach activities.