HakiElimu (Swahili, meaning ‘Right to Education’) is a registered Non Governmental Organization/Civil Society Organization in Tanzania which was established in 2001 by 13 Tanzanian Founding Members. Our history is rooted in the ambition of those founder members – that citizens, if actively involved in education governance, can make a difference in the education sector.

Today, HakiElimu is a leading national expert in education, policy analysis and advocacy and in 2019 the organisation was selected as the overall winner of The African Civil Society Excellence Awards. HakiElimu was also the winner of two categories, ‘Strategic Ability and Adaptability’ and ‘Leadership and Governance’.

Interventions:

Policy Change and Implementation

HakiElimu generates evidence of the learning and teaching environment in Tanzania through research, policy and budget analysis, and piloting innovations. We use this evidence to advocate for improved policy and education financing.

Citizen Participation and Engagement

Our evidence-based advocacy targets both citizens and policy makers with messages and calls to action. We utilise a number of platforms including publications, television, national and local radio, and social media, as well as direct engagement through conferences, policy forums and strategic meetings to stimulate national debate and seek commitments from the country’s leaders. 

Lasting change must be driven by citizens at community and national level, so we empower (all) people to transform education. Working through our grassroots movement of more than 40,000 Friends of Education (Volunteers) we enhance the voice and participation of all citizens, so they can assume ownership of their development and advance democracy.

We achieve this by translating complex concepts into easy to understand information and delivering national multimedia campaigns to raise awareness of citizens on key education issues.
We also build the capacity of the Friends of Education, providing them with the knowledge and tools to; monitor policy implementation and engage in locally led advocacy to hold local leaders to account; lead imaginative public dialogues; deliver Theatre for Development and local radio talk shows to raise awareness and promote citizens action on education challenges; and promote creative local solutions to effect social change that will improve education. The Friends of Education are also increasingly working alongside HakiElimu to strengthen school committees and child protection committees.

Transparency and Accountability

Our approach to increasing government and stakeholders’ responsiveness and accountability, involves working with oversight bodies and other civil societies to improve the planning processes and influence the approval and expenditure of public resources / budgets for inclusive and quality education.

We engage MPs before, during and after the budgeting process to influence education budget allocation, approval and disbursement. We conduct pre and post budget surveys and share the findings with MPs to inform their discussions during budget sessions.
Once budgets are approved we focus on oversight bodies, such as Local Government Authorities (LGAs), head teachers and school committees, building their capacity to understand policies and budgets and their roles in implementing them.

We also work through CSOs and citizens/Friends of Education who implement Social Accountability Monitoring (SAM) and Public Expenditure Tracking Surveys (PETS) to monitor accountability levels, and specifically the utilisation of resources allocated by the government against funding spent on planned education activities to combat resource misuse.