The Girls Education Advocacy in the Region (GEAR) project aims to address the challenge of limited access to primary and secondary education by girls and young women in rural and farming communities of Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. This problem exists in the context of inadequate domestic funding of the education systems, curriculum inadequacies, and compromised infrastructure and facilities for education in rural and farming communities. This is so even though the 3 countries are signatories of progressive education frameworks at the Southern Africa Development Committee (SADC), African Union (AU), and United Nations (UN) levels. There has also not been significant accountability by the 3 member states to ensure relevant educational reforms to domesticate and operationalize the frameworks. Moreso, Civic Society Organizations have not been coordinated to align their education advocacy to optimize the government commitments to binding transnational education frameworks such as Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4, the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, and the SADC protocol on education and training. To address the challenges above the GEAR alliance made up of 4 organizations from Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe shall implement the GEAR project between November 2021 and June 2024 using the following broad approaches

1. Strengthen the capacities of CSOs from Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe to utilize and review processes on binding transnational frameworks on the right to education

2. Support in-country collaborations by CSOs to demand government accountability on the right to education using their commitment to progressive education frameworks

3. Support participation by CSOs in the review cycles of progressive educational frameworks

4. Support CSOs linking and learning on transnational education advocacy

GEAR Alliance

The main aim and goal of the GEAR Alliance project is to ensure inclusive and equitable education systems for girls in rural and farming communities of Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. This goal is premised on the argument by the GEAR Alliance that one of the key components to ensure inclusivity and equity in the education system is for governments to deliver education as a human right using available frameworks such as SDG 4. To this end, collaborative advocacy by CSOs to ensure the three governments are accountable to the progressive education frameworks is an important step towards solving the problem being faced by girls and young women in the rural and farming communities of the 3 countries.